Nao Basketball

Another great piece of Nao development from Caxisa. This time to achieve scoring with a ball through a basket ball hoop. The navigation is by locating and recognising a Nao Landmark above the basket. The Nao Landmark is recognised using one of the two video cameras in Nao's head and the size and position of the mark are used to determine distance and positioning. A great piece of work, thanks for sharing it with us.

Bruno Maisonnier Wins IERA Award

Bruno Maisonnier, the founder of Aldebaran Robotics, and the man behind the Nao humanoid robot, has been presented the Invention and Entrepreneurship Award at the 2011 ICRA reception party.

The award is jointly sponsored by IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (IEEE/RAS) and the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). Quoting the IFA's website:

"The purpose of this award is to highlight and honor the achievements of the inventors with value creating ideas and entrepreneurs who propel those ideas into world-class products. At the same time the joint disposition of the award underlines the determination of both organizations to promote stronger collaboration between robotics science and robotics industry."

Congratulations to Bruno Maisonnier and everyone at Aldebaran Robotics who has, and continues to make Nao the amazing platform he is. 



(source: http://www.ifr.org/events/iera-award)

Is Innovation Stagnating?

A really interesting video item from PBS that discusses the state of the US ecomony with regard to job growth, or rather the lack of it, and the technology revolution. I won't pass my own opinion as I think the article presents both sides very fairly. I just hope that global robotics development can help increase jobs across all sectors of the population as the developments we are seeing now go into mass production and mass market.