AllThingsD » robot

All I Want for Christmas Is My Robot Hair Transplant

Lauren Goode — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 19:26:03 +0000

For two years, a privately held, Mountain View-based company called Restoration Robotics went through clinical trials while awaiting clearance from the FDA. Its product: A high-tech robot that performs hair-transplant procedures.

Now the machine, called Artas, is finally making its way into physicians’ offices across the U.S.

The Artas robot works by automating the relatively new procedure of follicular unit extraction, in which individual hair follicles are taken from the back and sides of the head, after which the grafts are then implanted into the area of baldness. A traditional hair transplant would involve more invasive incisions and the manual application of the grafts to a patient’s head. With a robot, some doctors say, the procedure is more precise, and removes the element of human error.

Restoration Robotics and others credit a Denver-based physician, Dr. James Harris, for making many of the advances that lead to the robotic hair-transplant device.

For physicians, the Artas machine involves an initial investment of around $200,000. Staff training sessions, which are led by Restoration Robotics, can take up to five weeks.

For patients, the cost can vary. The fee for the robotic-assisted procedure is usually around $10 a graft. Insurance companies may cover the procedure in the event that it’s reconstructive. Dr. Bernstein says the bulk of his practice is cosmetic cases, but notes that he often won’t charge patients that have hair loss due to trauma, burns or chemotherapy.

The Artas hair-transplant procedure can take up to eight hours. It’s generally done in one session, but a less-intensive follow-up procedure could also be required later on.

Doctors say it’s not dramatically faster than the traditional methods used in hair transplants, but it takes the human-error element out of the procedure. Surgeons can tire during a long procedure, during which thousands of hair follicles are replaced. They may be forced to take breaks and, naturally, are susceptible to error.

Dr. Bernstein also notes that, as is commonly the case with the introduction of automated machinery, having the Artas robotic system in his office means he can complete the same number of procedures, or more, with a leaner staff.

Currently there are four Artas systems in place across the U.S. — one in New York, another in Denver, and two in Los Angeles — and Restoration Robotics CEO Jim McCollum says the company is expecting to sell even more robots in the new year. He believes there’s potential for this to be a game-changing technology and also said there may be a market for Artas that focuses more on female patients, as well.

Restoration Robotics was founded in 2002; in 2007, the company raised $25 million from InterWest Partners, Alloy Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures. After Artas was cleared by the FDA in April of this year, the company secured $41 million in Series C funding from Clarus Ventures and other early investors, as discussed on The Wall Street Journal’s “Digits” show earlier this year.

Robot Ball Sphero Ready for Developers to Give It a Spin

Ina Fried — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:00:24 +0000

The company behind the Sphero robot ball said it is now ready for outside developers to start creating apps for the device. Orbotix said on Monday that it is releasing the developer tools and several apps it has created, in addition to shipping the first orders for the delayed Sphero.

Sphero, the iPhone-Controlled Robot Ball, Hits a Bump

Ina Fried — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 23:45:44 +0000

Sphero, a robot ball that can be wirelessly maneuvered using a smartphone, is rolling off the production line more slowly than expected.

Orbotix, the company behind the product, said Wednesday that only a handful of orders will ship by the holidays, with most orders delayed until January. The $130 ball, which works with Android and iOS devices, was first shown at January’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The company had said it expected to have limited production for this year, but that turned out to be even more limited than it had planned.

“Demand has been greater than expected and our production capabilities are slower than we planned,” Orbotix CEO Paul Berberian said in a letter to customers.

To try to make amends, Berberian said the company will expedite the shipping of all preorders, and will send a T-shirt and holiday card to anyone whose Sphero was expected this month but won’t be rolling around under the tree.

“We put a ton of effort into building up hype for this holiday season only to fall short of making good on the hype,” Berberian said. “But we hope that when your Sphero does arrive, it will make up for this delay in shipping with hours of entertainment for you and your friends.”

In the meantime, you can watch this video of me playing with an early prototype:

[ See post to watch video ]

Meet Kid Robot, Kibot: The Full AsiaD Demo (Video)

Kara Swisher — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 21:05:20 +0000

We are now posting the full videos from the recent AsiaD conference, which took place in Hong Kong in October.

Over the next two weeks, we’re going to follow the schedule of the actual event. Up now: Kibot, a robot for kids.

Besides playing educational games, Kibot from Korea Telecom gives parents another pair of eyes, too, with videochat and remote control.

Kibot — available only in South Korea for now — is aimed at children from three to seven years old. It looks like a monkey, whose nose is an RFID reader, stomach is a control panel and ears are the navigational buttons.

Would that my kids were that easy to control.

[ See post to watch video ]

Kibot Demo at AsiaD (Video)

Beth Callaghan — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 12:03:59 +0000

Korea Telecom demoed Kibot, its kids’ robot, at AsiaD today. The plastic monkey combines games and education, which is nothing too unique, but as shown in the video below, it also allows parents to call, videochat with their child, and even control the robot remotely.

[ See post to watch video ]

Is It a Tutor, a Child Monitor or a Toy? No, It's a Kibot (AsiaD Demo)

Bo Kim — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 06:42:29 +0000

Meet Kibot, the brand new “kid’s robot,” from Korea Telecom. Though mixing games and education is nothing new, the company hopes that this plastic monkey will push the boundaries of learning hardware.

Korea Telecom demoed the Kibot at AsiaD, showing how the monkey can read books and sing nursery songs (in Korean) to your kid.

Kibot plays language learning games on its touchscreen belly, and if your children don’t interact with it for a few minutes, it will get bored and roam the house looking for a playmate.

Kibot’s aim is to keep kids interacting and learning — which hopefully abates any creepiness about having a child-seeking robot in the home.

Though Kibot primarily serves children ages three through seven, some features are definitely aimed at parents. Not only can they call their children to video chat, they can control the Kibot and use it to watch their children remotely.

How does it work?

After it’s switched on, the Kibot’s monkey body becomes a control panel. Holding the left ear views the next story, song or game. Holding the right ear goes back to the content you just left — an interface that makes sense if you’re used to reading Korean rather than English.

Kibot’s nose doubles as an RFID reader for special Kibot books. Swipe one and it will start reading the book aloud. There are also word cards, to teach vocabulary, and telephone cards, which allow the child to call only numbers that parents have pre-registered.

The Kibot is currently available only in South Korea. Korea Telecom hopes its smartphone-like revenue model will be a hit with parents. Kibot requires an ongoing service plan, and the add-on games, songs and stories are all for purchase.

Google Blames a Human for Its Robot Car Accident

Peter Kafka — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 17:28:06 +0000

Yes, one of Google’s self-driving cars got into an accident this week. But Google says you can’t blame this one on its technology. It says its Prius was under the control of an old-fashioned flesh-and-blood driver when it got too close to someone else’s Prius.

Statement from a Google spokesperson: “Safety is our top priority. One of our goals is to prevent fender-benders like this one, which occurred while a person was manually driving the car.”

The same Google spokesperson also wants us to know that Google’s self-driving cars have logged “160,000 miles autonomously without incident.”

Here’s the photo of what doesn’t appear to be a very serious incident, via Jalopnik:

Glad no one appears hurt, but this is a good reminder of one of the main reasons Google’s experiment with robot cars both fascinates us and creeps us out. As Marc Andreessen says, there are lots and lots and lots of people who shouldn’t be driving cars. But handing complete control of a car over to a computer can still strike you as an awfully big leap.

The Facebook Hedgehog Mascot (And Yelp Competitor) That Never Was

Liz Gannes — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:53:19 +0000

Even if it sounds more like a tall tale than it does the truth, a post on Quora from early Facebook employee Ezra Callahan this morning is pretty amazing.

A Quora user asked, “Does Facebook need a pet (Android robot, Twitter bird, etc.) to improve its corporate image?”

Callahan, who joined Facebook in 2004 and was the company’s first product manager, replied that early Facebook president Sean Parker had advocated the company adopt a hedgehog (literally) as its mascot.

At the time, Facebook was working on a Yelp competitor, a would-be revenue-generating product it scrapped after getting venture funding.

Callahan and Matt Cohler (now a Benchmark venture capitalist and Quora’s lead investor) had looked into sending “each participating business a little stuffed blue hedgehog,” and Parker toyed with the idea of buying an actual hedgehog in Nevada, according to Callahan, who insists this is a true story. With Callahan’s departure from the company last year, none of those three are still at Facebook.

Read the full tale here.

I felt a little silly doing it, but I’ve asked Facebook PR for comment.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

Image courtesy Flickr user Claus Rebler.

Phone-Controlled Robot Ball Set to Roll Around CES

Ina Fried — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 17:39:48 +0000

There will be a lot of quirky gadgets rolling through Las Vegas as the Consumer Electronics Show this week in addition to all the big-time announcements such as new phones, TVs and tablets.

Among those to keep an eye out for is a little robotic ball from Orbotix, a seven-person start-up from Boulder, Colo.

The company’s lone product, Sphero, is still in the prototype stage but could be indicative of the types of products the world is likely to see more of. Sphero is like a remote-control car, except it’s a baseball-sized sphere. Also, it is controlled from either an iPhone or an Android device.

Although the mechanics of a remote-controlled ball are fairly simple, Orbotix CEO Paul Berberian told Mobilized, it takes some sophisticated controls to operate a ball, which, unlike a car has no real up or down.

“It would have been impossible three years ago to make this work for under thousands of dollars,” Berberian said.

Luckily, sensors have gotten tiny and cheap and today’s smartphones have all the processing power one needs. Sphero communicates with the phone using Bluetooth. Berberian said that Bluetooth has a number of advantages, including the ability to use the cell phone’s Internet connection should developers want to write games that tap into the Web.

Berberian said he can also imagine all manner of augmented reality games that take the rolling ball and turn it into everything from a pony to a race car, depending on the age and interests of the ball’s owner.

First, though, Orbotix must get the product to market. Although prototypes are being shown off at CES, it’s not slated to hit the market until late in 2011. The goal is for it to sell for under $100.

Orbotix has some backing to get there. After getting its start last year in a regional tech incubator, the company landed venture funding from the Foundry Group.

Sphero is not the first phone-controlled object out there. An iPhone-controlled helicopter made the rounds at a past CES and a model is now on the market.

However, the ball is designed as a little rolling robotic platform, with an open programming interface so that developers out there can write their own games using Sphero.

Berberian said that the company already has a few variants of the game, beyond just trying to steer around a little ball. Among the options is a sumo wrestling notion in which two players, each with their own Sphero, try to knock the opposing ball outside of a certain ring. There’s also a tug-of-war concept in which players answer questions to vie for control of the ball to move it toward opposite goals.

That, Berberian said, is only the beginning of the company’s ambition. It hopes others will write programs for Sphero as well, with the company aiming to have a number of such programs available when Sphero hits the market later this year.

At this point, there are far fewer than 100 of the balls, all prototypes rolling around the company’s offices. Berberian said the company plans to bring about a dozen of them to Las Vegas for people to play around with at the company’s booth.

In case you are thinking, as I was, “Wow, what a great cat toy,” Berberian insists it’s not designed for pets.

“What people choose to do in their own home is up to them,” Berberian said. However, he cautioned that Sphero is “not designed for a Great Dane to pick up and start chomping on and survive that kind of pressure.”

Here’s an Orboitx-produced video that shows one of the prototypes in action.

Sphero Sneak Peek from Paul Berberian on Vimeo.

Panasonic's Evolta: Unstoppable Bar Rain, Stairs and Eneloop?

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:59:33 +0000

Step aside Energizer Bunny, make-way for Evolta-kun. The miniature green robot, standing a full 17 centimeters (6.7-inch) tall, is pulling his cart along a 500-kilometer (300-mile) route connecting Tokyo to Kyoto.

Evolta-kun’s epic journey on the Tokaido, one of Japan’s ancient thoroughfares, is part of a marketing campaign by Panasonic Corp. to promote its Evolta rechargeable batteries. At each of the route’s 53 stages where a weary traveler would once stop for food and lodging, Evolta-kun recharges its batteries (literally).

Even the robot mascot has his own crew of costume-wearing female models (the Evolta Sisters), an exclusive theme song (We, Challengers) and, of course, a daily comic strip. The robot travels with an entourage of five staff. One ‘Evolta Sister’ pushes a cart that emits an infra-red signal to control the robot’s direction; two members are in charge of checking for safety and two cameramen chronicle every robotic step of his journey.

There are rules: Evolta-kun stops at red lights. It doesn’t walk at night or in the rain. The robot can’t climb stairs. (With regards to stairs, a staff member will carry it by hand,” according to the rules.)

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Gogobot CEO Travis Katz Talks About Beta Launch of Social Travel Site

Kara Swisher — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:00:12 +0000

Last week, BoomTown sat down with former Myspace exec Travis Katz to talk about the private beta launch of his new start-up, Gogobot.

No, it’s not a robot from Google–it’s a social travel site, which uses friends to enhance the travel-planning experience.

The name means nothing really except that it sounded energetic and adventurous to Katz, with a bit of tech mixed in.

While in a bit of a stealth mode, Gogobot has been a bit of an open secret in Silicon Valley.

Katz and CTO Ori Zaltzman–most recently the chief architect of Yahoo BOSS–started the company earlier this year with a small team.

It garnered $4 million in venture funding from Battery Ventures, Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors and angel investors Chris DeWolfe, Keith Rabois and Oren Ze’ev.

Gogobot rides on top of social networking behemoths such as Facebook and Twitter.

Said Gogogot in its press release:

“Unlike other travel sites, Gogobot connects users with friends and people like them for travel advice and links the advice they give in real-time with maps, pictures, pricing and descriptions.”

Essentially, it feels like Facebook for trips, but with really good images.

Currently, Gogobot links users to hotels and other information, but eventually its business plan is to complete reservations and garner lead generation revenues.

We’ll see how it goes, but the online travel business, despite being huge among consumers, certainly could use some updating and organization–and some innovation.

Here’s the video interview I did last week with Katz–who ran international operations for Myspace–talking about where Gogobot is traveling to:

[ See post to watch video ]

And here are a pair of screenshots for the service (click on the images to make them larger):

Panasonic Develops Hair-Washing Robot

Beth Callaghan — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 21:03:13 +0000

Showcasing an interesting new use of 3D technology, Panasonic unveiled a hair-washing robot today that scans the shape and surface of a client’s head in order to apply “just the right amount of pressure” while shampooing and massaging each scalp. The robot was designed to help at understaffed healthcare facilities in Japan, where the rapidly aging population is a growing issue.

Walt and Kara Tour the New MIT Media Lab: Geektastic!

Kara Swisher — Fri, 07 May 2010 11:44:44 +0000

Earlier this week, Walt Mossberg and I visited the new geek wonderland at the MIT Media Lab.

Officially opened in early March and designed by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki, the Cambridge, Mass.-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology complex has been in the works for a dozen years.

The open and airy building screams digital innovation, with seven interlocking “cubes” around a main atrium. It is connected to the original Media Lab cube, designed by I.M. Pei, called the Wiesner Building.

Walt and I visited some of the new labs with Director Frank Moss, checking out everything from a foldable City Car in the Smart Cities group to some really strange opera gloves in its music group, to…well, you’ll see.

Here’s the video, which is kind of long, but has lots of robots (of course!):

[ See post to watch video ]

[Photo credit: Andy Ryan/MIT]

Kara Visits TEDMED (Featuring Synthetic Skin and Heart-Scanning iPhones!)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:05:11 +0000

Can your cellphone check your blood sugar? What does a wireless BandAid do? Is my pill networked? Can a videogame cure cancer? Will a robot care for my mom? Can an Apple (AAPL) iPhone save my life?

And, of course, does synthetic skin feel gross?

The answer to the last question is yes, but it is also pretty astonishing to touch, as noted in one of the many tech-heavy talks at TEDMED, the medical and health-care conference, which has returned after a five-year hiatus, to Hotel Coronado near San Diego.

The four-day gathering is being helmed by RIchard Saul Wurman, the legendary creator of the original Techonology, Entertainment and Design conference. After he sold it, Wurman struck a deal to license the name for this independent event from TED.

Speakers include famed inventor Dean Kamen, pioneering genomic scientist J. Craig Venter, 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta and Qualcomm (QCOM) CEO Paul Jacobs.

Here’s a video I did, which includes interviews with Wurman, as well as his new conference partner, Marc Hodosh, and clips from presentations by Intel (INTC) Fellow Eric Dishman comparing mainframe computers to hospitals, and actress Goldie Hawn, who talked about the benefits of a happier classroom:

[ See post to watch video ]

ByeRobot (Domo Arigato Mrs. Roboto)

John Paczkowski — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:45:40 +0000

Something over at iRobot doesn’t compute.

The robot maker just lost its second co-founder in as many months. On Wednesday, Helen Greiner stepped down from her post as chairman of iRobot, leaving only CEO Colin Angle as the remaining co-founder of the company. Coming as it does just a month after the resignation of Rodney Brooks, iRobot’s co-founder and CTO, Greiner’s departure is a bit of a surprise. And the company, which just reported a better-than-expected profit in its third quarter, offered little explanation for it. “She’ll be a passionate advocate of the industry,” said iRobot spokesperson Nancy Dussault-Smith. “Helen’s in a good place. She’s always been someone who’s been entrepreneurial. She’s a robot person through and through, and she’s going to stay in the robot business.”

Part Man. Part Machine. All Ballmer. The Future of Corporate Leadership

John Paczkowski — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:29:11 +0000

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates delivered his last scheduled speech as the full-time chairman of Microsoft (MSFT) this morning. He spoke at length about Microsoft’s application development plan, the August debut of Internet Explorer 8 and the company’s efforts to compete with Google (GOOG). But all paled in comparison to his discussion of Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio and the egg-throwing Ballmer-bot created with it. Transcript and video below …

Robot: Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers; developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers.

Bill Gates: Good; we’ve got the Ballmer-bot pretty excited here. It’s an amazing-looking robot. It’s just balancing itself, and fantastic.

Patrick Deegan: Yeah, what you see here is the latest in robotics technology. The Ballmer-bot features a dynamically stable mobile base, a rotating torso and two dexterous arms. This makes it so that it’s even able to throw eggs.

[ See post to watch video ]

Our Sperm Engine? It's a V8 -- 8 Flagella Mounted on the Crankcase

John Paczkowski — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:17:06 +0000

Here’s a rather odd hybrid vehicle equally at place in the annals of science and science fiction: a sperm-powered nanoscale robot.

Scientists at Cornell University’s Baker Institute for Animal Health have nearly managed to reproduce (no pun intended) the minute biological engine that powers a sperm’s flagellum. That engine runs on a high-energy molecule called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, which sperm create via a metabolic process known as glycolysis.

Now, glycolysis requires 10 enzymes attached in the proper sequence to occur in the body. What the Cornell scientists hope to do is make it occur on a tiny gold chip covered with nickel ions. So far, they have attached three of the 10 enzymes to do that. If they’re able to attach the remaining seven, that little gold chip should generate enough ATP to power a nanodevice. Should that occur, their achievement could usher in a new era of smart in-body medical devices that use blood glucose as fuel.

Said Dr. Erkki Ruoslahti, a nanotechnology researcher at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, Calif., “Having some sort of way of being able to power nanodevices is the No. 1 bottleneck in constructing really clever devices.”

Our Sperm Engine? It's a V8 -- 8 Flagella Mounted on the Crankcase

John Paczkowski — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:17:06 +0000

Here’s a rather odd hybrid vehicle equally at place in the annals of science and science fiction: a sperm-powered nanoscale robot.

In the 21st Century There Will Be a New Endangered Species … Man.

John Paczkowski — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 13:12:39 +0000

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates titled his recent article in Scientific American on robotics “A Robot in Every Home,” but a better title might have been “A Robot on Every Battlefield.”

In June, the U.S. Army sent the the first armed ground robots into action in Iraq. Dubbed “special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action system” (SWORDS), the robots are armed with M249 machine guns–though they haven’t yet had cause to use them. The ‘bots “haven’t fired their weapons yet,” Michael Zecca, the SWORDS program manager, told Wired. “But that’ll be happening soon.”

So much for Isaac Asimov’s First Law of Robotics: “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”