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Video storage and streaming capability are priorities in new networking products from Belkin and Verizon.
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Simroid, a super-realistic dental training robot developed in Japan, caused quite a splash in news outlets worldwide when it made its debut in 2007. The level of realism was pretty high back then, but it’s even higher in the new version that was showcased in Tokyo a few days ago.
The basic idea is that Simroid simulates a human patient during a dental check-up by moving and speaking as realistically as possible, including the simulation of gag reflexes or negative reactions when the doctor touches her “breasts” by accident. Two cameras are recording the treatment, which makes it possible to evaluate the performance of dental students after each training session.
Professor Hamura from the Nippon Dental University, the mastermind behind Simroid, explains:
The first improvement we have made is that the robot now has speech recognition. So when you speak to it, it moves in response. There are also sensors in and around the mouth. So, for example, if something hurts or feels unpleasant, the robot can react. Another improvement, as you can see, is the skin. A robot dental patient has to “open wide,” so if the skin is made of silicone, it can tear. So we’ve used a different material, which doesn’t tear even if it’s stretched a lot or makes contact with dental implements.
The newest version is bi-lingual (English and Japanese), meaning Simroid might go on sale in the US and other places soon, too.
This video, shot by Diginfo TV (in English), provides more insight:
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Honda isn’t the only Japanese car maker active in robotics (with Asimo etc.), Toyota has been active in this area for quite some time, too. Big T showcased a total of four robots yesterday, all with the healthcare and nursing markets in mind. It’s not a surprise Japan’s biggest car company is focusing on these areas, as its home country has the oldest society in the world (23% of the population are 65 or older).
Here are the robots Toyota showed during their press conference in Tokyo:
Independent Walk Assist (help paralyzed people walk)
Walk Training Assist (supports return to natural walking for people with impaired walking)
Balance Training Assist (trains people who have trouble maintaining their balance while standing)
Patient Transfer Assist (the most advanced and unique robot of the four, helps caretakers lifting and moving patients)
Toyota considers commercializing these robots sometime “after 2013″.
This video, shot by Diginfo TV on location, provides more insight (in English):
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Cisco Systems’ Home Networking Business Unit will keep both its Linksys brand and its place in the parent company as Cisco pares down its business, but the unit is also sharpening its focus.
Linksys has stopped making devices that connect to networks and is strictly focused on the networks themselves, said Brett Wingo, general manager of the business unit, in an interview last week. Like Cisco itself, which discontinued the Flip video camera and the Umi consumer telepresence product earlier this year, the home networking unit is going back to what it’s best known for: wireless routers.
However, those routers are taking on a larger role at the center of consumers’ use of multimedia, particularly video, Wingo said. Users want to watch video from a variety of sources and on many different devices, but many home networks can’t effectively link all those components, he said.
“What consumers want is, they want this problem solved,” Wingo said.
Linksys routers are designed to deliver the best quality possible by detecting all the devices connected to a home wireless network, determining what their capabilities are for playing different types of content, and making sure the network is secure. The routers also can tell where the wireless signal is strong enough to deliver what’s desired, Wingo said.
But Cisco wants those routers to take on an even bigger role, serving as the main meeting place between the home network and the Internet or service-provider network. Rather than have carrier gateway boxes, Internet-connected thermostats, smart TVs and other devices all linking to the outside world on their own, consumers can have one box that handles many connectivity functions.
Routers are “sitting idle and not doing things a lot of the time, and you can have them do more and you can run more services on them,” Wingo said. “The hardware that’s capable of moving video around the house or displaying software onto a screen … those types of things can be done in the router in a lot of cases.”
Through industry standards, Cisco plans to make its routers into hubs for devices from all vendors, so consumers aren’t locked into just buying Linksys, he said.
Cisco has a strong faith in IEEE 802.11n wireless to deliver video around a home. In fact, it expects wireless to win out over all other types of home networks, partly because so many consumer electronics devices are equipped with wireless technologies. However, Linksys routers do include provisions for incorporating wired technologies such as powerline and coaxial cable.
What allows Cisco to become the center of home networks is the company’s expertise in video across service provider, enterprise and home networks, Wingo said. The engineering teams at Linksys and Cisco’s enterprise businesses now pass ideas back and forth, he said. It brings intelligence from that experience into the software in Linksys wireless routers, which are more than just routers or access points but video processing devices that can do part of the work of delivering video appropriately to TVs, tablets and other devices, Wingo said.
Cisco Systems plans to acquire BNI Video, a privately held provider of video delivery software for service providers, for about US$99 million.
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Oh well. Where’s that iPhone 4S pre-order link? Samsung and Google decided that “it is just not the right time to announce a new product” and postponed the scheduled Nexus Galaxy/Prime and Ice Cream Sandwich debut. The two companies were supposed use the CTIA stage next Tuesday to unveil the next-gen superphone and Google’s latest Android incarnation. But that’s not going to happen per a joint statement released this morning.
Samsung and Google decide to postpone the new product announcement at CTIA Fall. We agree that it is just not the right time to announce a new product. New date and venue will be shortly announced.
This takes the event off the books for next Tuesday, October 11th. The mobile world was expecting the big unveiling of the Nexus Galaxy (or Prime, if previous rumors are believed). Details leaked yesterday concerning the so-called superphone that places a 1.2GHz CPU, backed by 1GB of RAM at the core. The phone is said to include an NFC chip, 32GB of storage and a 5MP camera with a 1080p recording mode. Of course none of this was confirmed. Next Tuesday was going to be a big day for mobile nerds.
Eric Schmidt previously stated that Google would launch Ice Cream Sandwich by November. Hopefully Google stays true to its word and the Nexus Galaxy/Prime event will be back on the books sometime this month.
But fear not. A leaked demo video hit the interwebs today that might satisfy your Ice Cream Sandwich craving. It’s hard to tell if this is the real release or just a clever Android 2.x launcher, but we’re leaning more towards the former. The video doesn’t have any glaring goofs or obvious flaws. The OS shown is silky smooth, the animations are right, and there’s certainly a Honeycomb feel throughout the whole thing. If that video is indeed Ice Cream Sandwich, current Android owners might want to hold off jumping on the 4S bandwagon. A beast is nearly upon us.
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The state-run China Central Television network has yanked a video that inadvertently included a short clip of a cyber-attack tool targeting Falun Gong websites.
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The clip shows up without explanation, lasting for about six seconds during a rather mundane documentary about hacking produced by the state-sponsored China Central Television
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Two days ago, Toshiba-Fujtsu in Japan took the wraps of the IS12T, the world’s first world’s first phone running Windows Phone 7.5 (aka Mango). We were quick in giving you the first specs, but we now have a video that shows the 1 Ghz Qualcomm CPU-powered device in action – plus some more detailed specs.
First, here are the main specs (in more detail), as announced [JP] by the provider of the IS12T in Japan, local mobile carrier KDDI:
Second, our friends at Diginfonews in Tokyo have shot this professional video (in English) that shows the IS12T in action:
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