Robot builder Kåre Halvorsen (aka Zenta) has released a new video of his MorpHex robot. This is a hexapod robot with a spherical shell. The sphere is divided into an upper and lower hemisphere, each of which are broken into six smaller segments. The lower six shell pieces act as legs when the robot is moving. All twelve segments can be retracted to form a sphere. In addition to the video, check out the Zenta Robotic Creation blog for lots of photos during the construction.

A new version of the Nao is ready, and eager to make your acquaintance.

Get ready for the four robots of the apocalypse as we review a book that should be close to the hearts of robots.net readers - because you actually helped research it: Robert M. Geraci's "Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality". Geraci, a professor of religion and researcher of all things eschatological, notes that,

"excepting rapture theologians of fundamentalist Christianity, popular science authors in robotics and artificial intelligence have become the most influential spokespeople for apocalyptic theology in the Western World."

You heard that right, roboticists and AI researchers have risen to second place when it comes to who we think of when the topic is apocalyptic theology. And with fundamentalists blowing two more apocalyptic predictions since the book was published, who knows, we may be number 1 now. But how can robots and AI be theology? Read on for a full review of Geraci's book.

Kyle Nelson, of the Centre for Intelligent Systems Research at Deakin University in Australia, wrote to tell us about a motion simulator they're developing that's based on a giant robot arm.

"The CISR haptically-enabled Universal Motion Simulator (UMS) is a state-of-the-art platform for dynamic training and performance analysis. The platform is built on integrated COTS technologies, including a customised anthropomorphic industrial robot, 3D visualisation immersive displays (HMD) and a motion capture and tracking system. A 6 DOF serial kinematic robot permits two axes of continuous rotation, realistic g-force acceleration, same size turning radius independent of motion direction and reduced motion sickness. The UMS overcomes the limitations of current motion technology, by introducing a flexible, modular, high-fidelity motion system that can be used for a variety of dynamic, immersive training applications."

Read on for more video and details about the system.

The Swirling Brain noticed an io9 post from a while back with some cool (or creepy perhaps) disembodied humanoid robot arms. They are known as the Ondz clapping robots and were created by Masato Takahashi of Keio University. His goal was to make "multipurpose hand-clapping machines" that would sound like authentic human applause, though other purposes ranging from telepresence clapping to spanking machines have been suggested. Read on to see more video of the clapping robots in action.

In episode #92, Robots Podcast interviews Henrik Christensen, the KUKA Chair of Robotics at the College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, and director of the Center for Robotics and Intelligent Machines. Professor Christensen has played a leading role in the initiative to create a roadmap for robotics research in the United States, and to keep that roadmap up to date. That roadmap is the primary subject of this interview.
Read On or Tune In

Dan from Future-Bot writes to let us know about his ATOM-7xp humanoid project, "next to the PETMAN it's the only full size humanoid going on in the USA". IEEE Spectrum published a nice retrospective on John McCarthy, the man who created LISP and was credited with coining the phrase "artificial intelligence". Our friends over at IEET have published an amusing poll showing the level of support for the Occupy movement among AI and singularity people. The Brain Mysteries blog notes a new study showing the high correlation of functional areas in the human brain with mice and other mammal brains, indicating a common conservation mechanism in evolution. And, speaking of brains, the Conscious Entities blog suggests a new way of looking at consciousness - maybe consciousness the output of a brain, not part of the processing. Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts we should report? Send 'em our way please. And don't forget to follow us on twitter.

A fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles will build a six meter high tower from 1,500 polystyrene foam blocks. The flying autonomous robots will perform this feat at the FRAC Centre in Orléans, France as part of an exhibition by Swiss architect Gramazio & Kohler with Italian roboticist Raffaello D'Andrea. Their goal is to encourage "radical new ways of thinking and materializing architecture as a physical process of dynamic formation". If you want to see the actual assembly, you'll want to be there during the first few days:

Following an initial phase lasting several days and dedicated to the assembly by flying machines of a model standing 6m high and 3.5m in diameter – made up of 1500 prefabricated polystyrene foam modules, the exhibition will feature a “megastructure” in its completed form, along with a film documenting the airborne assembly and all aspects of the exhibition.

The exhibit opens with the assembly performance on Friday December 2nd through Sunday December 4th. There will also be a lecture on the evening of December 2nd. Read on to see some of the aerial skills of the robots that will be building the tower in a video where they show off their ability to quickly transition between different 3D formations.

One of the biggest steps in space exploration, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) named Curiosity was launched today with an Atlas V 541 vehicle and it is now on its way to Mars. The Curiosity rover is similar in size and weight to a small car and it will be the largest spacecraft to ever land on Mars. A very elaborate landing procedure not only enables it to reach safely the Martian surface but also to land in a relatively tight spot whith great geological interest. The mission cost approximately 2.5 billion dollars and it was scheduled for launch in 2009 but various delays forced NASA to abort that goal. The optimum launch window when Mars and Earth are in the relative position that makes the trip as short as possible occurs every two years so two years after 2009 it is now the time for launch. The primary mission will last one Martian year (98 earth weeks) and if the rover is operational it could be further extended for much more. Landing sequence is scheduled for August 2012. Read below for more details.

It's time for Black Friday; the annual, post-Thanksgiving celebration of consumerism run-amok in the United States. And, as is our tradition here at robots.net, we're going to let you in on all the Black Friday sales with bargains that will be of interest to robot builders. We'll start with the big sale at Pololu. Paul Grayson writes:

Pololu Robotics and Electronics is having its biggest Black Friday sale
yet, starting this Thursday, November 24th. You can get up to $25 off your entire order in addition to saving up to 60% on dozens of selected products, including the Pololu 3pi and m3pi robots, Wixel wireless modules, Maestro Servo Controllers, Simple Motor Controllers, sensors, chassis, actuators, and more!

BG Micro is offering 10% off your entire order of cool surplus electronics; all you have to do is use the coupon code "bfm" when you check out. Take a look at BG's Virtual Sidewalk sale for more discounts. Electronic Goldmine is offering a choice of discounts: $5 off orders over $55, a free magnetic pickup tool with orders over $45, or a free precision screwdriver set with orders over $25. They've also got a long list of components and test equipment on sale. American Science and Surplus has an assortment of typically eccentric items on sale. You can find a variety of motors, servos, and other electronics on sale at Hobbypartz.com. Harbor Freight has a sale on tools that might come in handy for a roboticist. Evolution Robotics has a Black Friday / Cyber Monday sale on their model 4200 Mint robot floor cleaner, while iRobot is offering a discount on their Roomba 530 robot vacuum.

In preparation for the upcoming real sea-trials, Boeing’s unmanned helicopter (based on a modified MD530F ‘little bird’) successfully landed on a moving platform towed by a truck. The project is under contract by the French armaments agency (DGA) and major partners are DCNS and Thales. Both French companies are modifying the system for its new more demanding role and next year, sea trials will be conducted over a French frigate. It is worth noticing that this particular system is not only derived from a manned system but it can be optionally piloted with a various levels of autonomy thus speeding up the development and simplifying many complex procedures that usually fully unmanned systems have. (via Ares blog)

Speaking of robotic snakes, this one, from Canadian art lab eatArt, based on an extinct species of boa, wants to get into your head and create a vision of a future not unlike the distant, significantly warmer past in which the creature lived.
(Found on The Verge)

In Robots Podcast episode #91, Per Sjoborg, founder of Flexibility Envelope, speaks with Martin Nilsson, Associate Professor at the Swedish Institute of Computer Science, about self-reconfigurable modular robotics in general and about Nilsson's work as part of the DRAGON (Distributed Real-time Autonomously Guided OrgaNisms) project in particular. Nilsson's snake-inspired robot is composed of a set of modules and DRAGON joints that enable the robot to physically connect and disconnect, share energy, and communicate.
Read On or Tune In.

Dragonflies can manoeuvre through the air more elegantly and with more degrees of freedom than any man-made machine yet designed, despite having brains with as little computing power as a desktop PC. It's one of those cases where man's intentional design is no match for millions of years of natural evolution at solving a complex problem. So how do you build a robot that can fly as well as a dragonfly? Reverse engineering! A Duke University news release reports that researchers have developed a tiny telemetry system that decodes and transmits the insect's neural activity as it flies. The researchers describe it as:

a 14-channel digital wireless neural/EMG telemetry system, suitable for in-flight neural recording from flying insects such as dragonflies. It has a system mass of only 38 milligrams. The IC is powered by RF energy harvesting and consumes less than 1.23mW. It digitizes 10 neural and 4 EMG signals with 11 bit resolution as a 5 Mbps backscattered data stream at UHF (902-928 MHz). It has been fabricated in a 0.35um 4M1P CMOS process.

This research is being done by Duke University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the HHMI Janelia Farm facility. The new research was revealed in a recently presented paper, "A Battery-Free Multi-Channel Digital Neural/EMG Telemetry System for Flying Insects" (abstract). Unfortunately the new paper is not yet available online. However, you can read more about the general idea from a previous paper by one of the same researchers: Wireless Neural/EMG Telemetry Systems for Small Freely Moving Animals (PFD format)

Time to empty out the editor's mailbox again. Jeremie sent a link to a blog post that will help you build your own Tankbot. Karim sent news of Google's robot overlords, which turn out to be algorithmically managed humans. Wesley let us know that if you're in Brazil and need educational robots, you should check out a company called XBot. We also heard from Sean about the BeRobot, which the Guiness Book of World Records says is the smallest humanoid robot around. At $599 USD though the BeRobot price may not be the smallest! VIA sends news of the first ever dual-core Pico-ITX board, the EPIA P900. Still too big to fit in a BeRobot but maybe just the thing for your next robot? Lastly, artist and roboticist Mark Miller (aka The Android Man) sent a link to video of his semi-autonomous boxing robots. With all the hype of the recent movie, Real Steel, they now seem more relevant than ever. Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts we should report? Send 'em our way please. And don't forget to follow us on twitter.

If you want a robot with the performance characteristics of an animal, it shouldn't be too surprising if the result looks a great deal like the animal. This is the case with the DARPA-funded FastRunner, a project led by the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC), in partnership with MIT's Robot Locomotion Group. FastRunner's design is patterned on the body design of an ostrich, and seems likely to eventually be able to cover ground equally quickly, if not faster. More detail on the project, including a video simulation, can be found here.

The Delta Robot is one of the fastest robots in the world. Invented by Reymond Clavel it was inspired and aimed at the chocolate industry (a very serious business in Switzerland) As it is usual the case for innovative concepts it took a while to catch on but today it is one of the most advanced packaging robots with a huge variety of versions. Its concept also has applications to other sectors, where extreme speed and accuracy is needed, like medical robots. The initial concept has three articulated arms and three motors that move a gripper in the 3 dimensional space while keeping it always perfectly parallel to the ground. You can read more about the Delta robot at this article by EPFL. We had previously featured Legolas, a high-precision robotic mechanism inspired by Delta robot.

Japanese firm Cyberdyne unveiled a version of the robotic exosceleton HAL (hybrid assisted limb) for workers employed at nuclear plants. In order to stay safe from radiation exposure they have to wear protection that weigh almost 60kg and the robotic suit lift most of this extra weight. For more information about HAL visit Cyberdyne’s website.