Robotics

For the record, I'm pretty darn amazed at how speedily and accurately the embedded vision demo co-developed by Analog Devices and BDTI accomplishes its dice-counting task: much faster and more precise than me. With that said, I'm really amazed at a robot named Janken, the Japanese word for the rock-paper-scissors game also known as roshambo.

In early August of last year, I pointed out that Microsoft had released the first public beta of its Kinect SDK for Windows in mid-June, followed by a Kinect-cognizant services suite for Robotics Developer Studio R3 in mid-July. And, at the end of September, I mentioned that Microsoft had unveiled a beta for the follow-on

As anyone who's followed the U.S. military's engagements in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan already knows, this country's armed forces are increasingly relying on robotic alternatives to human warriors; tread-equipped Roomba and Scooba siblings to disarm bombs, for example, or propeller- and wing-equipped drone alternatives to fighter jets for both surveillance and bomb-delivering

Robotics is a key development focus area for embedded vision…err…visionaries. Perhaps the most popular robot line currently available for sale is the Roomba vacuum cleaner series and closely related Scooba floor scrubbers, designed and manufactured by iRobot (who, not coincidentally, is also a leading producer of military robotic systems). However, Roomba's visual acuity is at