What kind of robot would you build if you didn’t have to bother with soldering, chassis construction, or coding? What if you could take it apart and use the same pieces to build something else? Imagine having the versatility of Voltron without annoying little people inside. CellRobot, up on Kickstarter right now, gives you that kind of freedom (blazing sword not included).
The device is exactly what it sounds like: robotic cells that can be assembled into a wide variety of different robots. Each cell has a 360 degree angle sensor, servo motor, and microcontroller — and can connect to any other cell at practically any angle thanks to a round snap joint system.
The powerhouse of any CellRobot is the “heart” — an all-in-one power supply and communication hub. It has a charge port, tiny six-hole speaker, power indicator, a small screen, and the standard round snap-twist connectors. It also houses the Bluetooth 4.0 transceiver that connects to your cellphone, as well as Wi-Fi, and Zigbee to connect to the other cells. The 2200 mAh lithium battery will run four cells for about 30 minutes, or one cell for five hours.
For more flexibility and less wear on your standard body cells, CellRobot has x-cells — additional modules that expand the functionality of the Heart cells, such as wheels, wheels, clamps, spotlights, and even camera. Cells and their accessory parts are controlled by an app (available for iOS and Android) that creates a 3D image of your creation (or creations). The app can show you how to build and control a robot, or give you the freedom to build your own and create custom commands for it.
In “guide mode,” for example, the app will show you how to put your cells together the right way, whereas “custom mode” lets you assign any movements to the shape that you’ve assembled. No matter what mode you choose, the app offers a shape library that shows the many ways you can put cells together. It will be updated with new configurations as other CellRobot users add creations to the community collection.
Even though CellRobot is designed to be as simple as a starter kit for those just getting started with robotics, people who are already familiar with robotics will have even more flexibility. The KEYi team, the creators of CellRobot plans to open the platform to developers in 2016, at which point those with the know-how can make their own apps. Users can make and add their own x-cells to extend CellRobot’s functions. The team pitches it as “100 robots in one.”
The CellRobot team is seeking $150,000 to cover the cost of manufacturing and finishing the development of the mobile app. Backer rewards for “early birds” start at $160 and go up from there, depending on how many cells are included. The super early-bird is a one-heart/four-Cell kit for $160, while the Deluxe Early Bird comes with one heart, 12 Cells, four wheels, one camera, one spotlight, and one connector for $680. If all goes as planned, KEYi expects to begin shipping to backers as early as April 2016.
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic's robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn't teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
Soon, a mattress protector may be more than a bed cover. Australian medtech company Sleeptite and researchers at RMIT University have received a US patent for FlexiSense, a smart bedding technology that tracks body position and posture to help caregivers identify when older residents may be at risk of falling.
The technology is being developed for Sleeptite’s in-bed monitoring system, REMi, and was recently on display at The MedTech Conference in Boston. A peer-reviewed study in Flexible and Printed Electronics says the sensors can also be made at scale without sacrificing performance or durability.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.