Researchers from Georgia Tech, the MIT Media Lab, and IDC in Israel have formed a new start-up in Atlanta called Tovbot.  One of their founders, Gil Weinberg, made it into the top ten selling apps with his music creator ZOOZBeat.  He, along with Guy Hoffman and Roberto Aimi, built a marimba-playing robot capable of improvisation called Shimon circa 2010.  It follows that the company’s first prototype, Shimi, is an Android-powered music robot.

Shimi takes advantage of your Android-based smartphone to recognize faces and words, allowing it to react intelligently to your commands.  Additionally, the robot grooves to the beat of whatever song it plays by nodding its speaker-laden head and tapping its “foot”.  It can also choose a tune for you based on the beat you tap or clap for it, and has the ability to create new compositions.  The company will be presenting their robots at the Google I/O After Party today at San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

“We’ve packed a lot of exciting robotics technology into Shimi,” says Gil Weinberg, cofounder and CEO of Tovbot. “Shimi is actually the product of nearly a decade of musical robotics research. We’re very excited about the opportunity to show the Google developer community what we’ve put together using the Android platform”.

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The novelty of such a device is made clear in the video, but it’s questionable how much money such a thing is really worth to people.  I suspect that (along with its sound quality) Shimi’s retail price of $199 USD will largely determine how it fares in competition with standard docks.  It is also quite large for such a device, but being a prototype it may yet undergo some plastic surgery.  A company rep says they plan to launch a line of smartphone-powered robots (some cheaper than Shimi) at CES 2013.

In the past, robotic musical companions (see Miuro, SONY’s Rolly, and AMP – not to mention even more toy-like varieties) have not caught on in a big way.  And there will be more competition amongst music-playing robots soon, when such features become expected of hobby kits as more companies integrate their products with smartphone technology (see Dongbu’s K-POP idol robots announced earlier this week).

[source: Tovbot] via [This Week In Creepy Robots]

Dongbu Robot, a South Korean company that sells the Genibo robot dog, has announced plans to market a line of entertainment robots based on famous K-POP stars.  The pint-sized robots, which are expected to launch before year’s end, will have detachable heads with “artificial skin” based on singers from Girl’s Generation and Super Junior.  That K-POP idols already look like Barbie dolls (partly due to the prevalence of plastic surgery in South Korea) may work in the robot’s favor.

The company claims the doll-like robots will be able to dance thanks to their 20 servo-driven joints, but it’s probably not worth getting too excited about.  No word on price, but hobbyists will be able to download new songs and dance routines via a smartphone app.  It seems likely the robots will be based on Dongbu’s new line of HOVIS humanoid kits, which (if true) means users will be able to program their own routines as well.  I foresee an avalanche of YouTube videos featuring them.

The company is combining its resources with those of Intelligent & Recreational Robot (known for their tabletop robot arcades) and Ocean Bridge E&T to bring them to market.  We don’t have any photos or videos of the K-POP robots, but you can expect them to look quite a bit like these examples from YouTuber RozenZebet:

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[source: Straitstimes] via [This Week in Creepy Robots]

Let the above photo sink in for a moment.  Hajime Sakamoto (the founder of the Hajime Research Institute) is assembling a real functional giant robot.  When we broke the story late last year it was little more than a conceptual image and a single leg.  Now both legs have been assembled and the cockpit’s seat is in place (though it still lacks feet, so we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see it walk).  This thing is going to be crazy awesome when it is complete!

He is also experimenting with a new master-slave control system for his 2 meter (6’6″) tall humanoid robot.  The uncommonly tall robot, Hajime 33, stands just one inch shy of the average height of an NBA player (from records of the past 30 years).  Previously it has been controlled using the joystick on a wireless game controller.  Now, the motion of the robot’s arms can be driven by a pair of miniature arms attached to a vest.

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Will this be part of the control apparatus inside the cockpit of the 4 meter humanoid?  Earlier we looked at the mixed control scheme for Vaudeville, another large robot that uses a combination of a Microsoft Kinect sensor and a touch-screen.

[source: Hajime Research Institute] via [Toshifumi Tsubouchi @ YouTube]