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Similar to how a human voice box works, this robot uses air to produce sounds. Researchers are studying how a “robotic mouth” would work and enable robots to someday, sing!

Perhaps some day these robots can not only sing, but also dance and make beautiful music.

Soon NASA astronauts will have a new colleague on the International Space Station.

Robonaut 2 will be launching on STS 133 and will help ISS astronauts do chores in space.

The robot was designed and built with collaboration with General Motors.

Q: What do you get when you put 20 Nao robots in one room?

A: A Discotheque

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Nao Robots by Aldebaran

The Most Impressive Bank You’ve Ever Seen, Complete with Butler Robots!

Santander banking group in Spain is introducing their State of the Art financial campus, complete with an interactive wall and an interactive model of their campus that provides Augmented Reality (AR) information on the buildings’ functions, architecture, and even the art contained within.

Fitted with four Stereo Vision cameras, the Willow Garage RP2 is able to find, grasp, and fold five towels from a pile.

CubeStormer Robot Solves Rubik’s Cube in Under 12 Seconds

This robot made out of Lego solves the Rubik’s Cube puzzle in under 12 seconds, faster than any human (that we know of). Check out the video:

Charlie, a product of Yujin Robotics of Korea, is launching Charlie, a robot that will help staff monitor patients in an Elderly Care fascility in Australia.

via CNet – http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10403944-1.html

AIDA – Affective Intelligent Driving Agent

Will an expressive robot who winks and smiles make it easier for drivers to navigate? This is exactly the question that researchers at MIT are trying to answer.

AIDA’s expressive behaviors are designed to endear the device to you as it helps in your daily navigation. The robot learns your daily commute and which areas you frequent for which purposes.

For example, if you always head to a particular district in your city around dinner time, it will assume you like to eat dinner there. After it memorizes your commute, it will automatically plug in your route to work when you get into the car on a weekday morning. If you go to a hotel for a dalliance every Thursday at noon, it will probably give you a wink and a knowing grin as it maps the route for you.

More crucially, it takes in data about local events and traffic conditions, and will route around those potential obstructions. It looks at the condition of your car, and might include a stop at a gas station if your tank is low.
Current navigation systems include many of these functions. Traffic data and detouring is included in cars such as the Ford Taurus. And traffic data aggregators such as Inrix and Navteq include event data to let you know when there’s a game at the local stadium, for example.

Car companies such as Nissan are also experimenting with robots in the car.