Personal robots are very expensive. Most scientists aren’t very rich. How to enable more scientists to have a chance to work in the field of robotics? Make robots that have one arm instead of two. That’s exactly what Willow Garage has done with its new PR2 SE. Unlike its dual-armed sibling, PR2, the PR2 SE has a single arm and comes at the discounted price of $285,000. The robot can be upgraded with a second arm at a later time. The combination of PR2 or PR2 SE and the open source Robot Operating System (ROS) means that researchers benefit from immediate time to innovation. In the past, researchers had to spend a substantial amount of their time building a robot and its operating system before they could start designing and deploying applications for personal robotics use in homes and offices. Now, right out of the box, the PR2 and ROS provide a complete, integrated hardware and software platform for research and development in the personal robotics field.
Toshiba’s Qosmio F755 3D laptop is the world’s first laptop capable of displaying glasses-free 3D and 2D content at the same time on one screen. Equipped with a 15.6-inch diagonal full HD TruBrite display with Active Lens technology, the double parallax image display is able to project two sets of images at the same time, splitting them between the left and right eyes to create the 3D effect. Toshiba’s intuitive Face Tracking technology then taps into the laptop’s built-in webcam to further perfect the projection of the image by reacting to the motion and position of the viewer, delivering a broad viewing zone from which to view glasses-free 3D content. The Qosmio F755 3D laptop offers up two displays in one, giving users the freedom to view content in either 2D or 3D – or both at the same time. Users have the option to watch 3D content in a full-screen or condense it to a smaller window, preserving the 2D desktop to browse the Web or do other tasks. The included Toshiba Blu-ray Player adds to the laptop’s flexibility by delivering easy “one-click” 2D-to-3D content conversion for DVDs and videos, giving users the opportunity to enjoy the latest Blu-ray 3D movies or experience their existing 2D movie library in a whole new way. The F755 3D retails for $1700.
The first-of-its-kind music streaming service for kids 8-14, imbeeRadio, is now available at the kid’s social network — imbee.com. Kids can create radio stations, search a huge library of over eight million songs and share their finds with friends. Kids can also listen to their radio stations on multiple devices and stream an unlimited number of songs. imbee.com is free to join but imbeeRadio is a premium service, paid for with an adult’s credit card. However, the site is offering a free 30 day trial of imbeeRadio. The site accepts Saudi credit cards but note that in the true tradition of radio, users are only allowed to skip six songs per hour. In addition to music streaming, imbee.com offers games, web series, pop culture news and community features. Kids can also connect and network via chat, photos and videos.
The fat, sassy cat, Garfield has a new free website that promotes literacy and fun learning activities. The Professor Garfield Foundation (PGF) learning portal (www.professorgarfield.org ) is an interactive online environment where children can safely explore, learn and creatively express themselves. Content ranges from traditional subjects, such as reading, writing and arithmetic, to career goal exploration and art. There are also special activities created expressly for kids with learning disabilities. PGF content targets children between kindergarten and the eighth grade. The educational content is upgraded continuously and presented in a popular culture entertainment format. All of the content has been reviewed by educational experts and tested in classroom settings.
