Most home robots available currently are designed for one specific use, like the iRobot Roomba for vacuuming, the WowWee Rovio for mobile surveillance or the Scooba for mopping floors.

Now, two students at the Louisiana State University’s department of computer science have created a prototype robot that can be fully customizable and used for multiple tasks such as lawn mowing and surveillance among others.

“What is most impressive about this robot is that it is multi-functional and no one else is currently designing multi-functional robots,” said S.S. Iyengar, chair of the computer science department at the university in a statement.

LSU’s robot called AgBot is solar powered and can move at up to six miles per hour for at least four hours.The robot comes with Bluetooth and GPS system that makes it easy to navigate.

In its avatar as a lawn care machine, it can be fitted with a seed dispenser and a fertilizer tank.

The robot is also equipped with a night vision camera positioned atop a 360 degree swivel, a high-frequency alarm system and advanced motion detector.

So in its surveillance mode, if the AgBot detects motion it can sound an alarm, photograph the intruder and email the picture.

The ultimate goal for the AgBot is to be completely customizable. With minor adjustments, the robot can support five or six different applications including picking up mail, say the students.

Here’s the video showing the AgBot at work.

Photo: Louisiana State University

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After a long time Zepto is back with a new notebook computer. The Mythos A15 sports white, minimalistic look, casted in exclusive and robust material, stylishly combined with a discretely illuminated Zepto logo. Specification-wise its a pretty nice laptop powered by an Intel 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo processor. Standout features include 8GB RAM, Blu-ray, 2.0 mega pixel webcam, fingerprint reader, NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT 512MB graphics card, and TV Tuner.
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The ipod Shuffle isn’t the best selling iPod for obvious reasons - it doesn’t come with any display, has a relatively small capacity and does not do video playback. Still, it occupies a rather niche market that caters to people who want to listen to a playlist of their favorite songs while hitting the treadmill. Why not turn it into something more stylish as what designer Isamu Sanada has done with this iPod Shuffle Bracelet concept. Battery life might be an issue here since it relies on a Bluetooth headset to listen to your tunes sans wires. Guess that issue will only be grappled if this concept ever makes it to real life, which is probably never.

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Here is another piece of DIY genius - this person decided to integrate a power-only USB port on his netbook by modifying an adapter that is powered by a VGA port. This adapter will surely come in handy whenever you have run out of all available USB ports in your notebook, never mind the fact that you’ve already overloaded it with numerous USB hubs. This modified hardware will allow you to hook up one more USB device without worries about not having enough power. Before you embark on this project though, make sure you have a male-to-male VGA gender changer and a female plug from any old USB extension cable. Most importantly, connect the RED 5V wire to the PIN 9 on the gender changer and hook up the BLACK to PIN 10 (GND) later. Once done with soldering, fill the connector with epoxy and you’re good to go.

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Word on the street has it that Microsoft’s newest hardware known as “Pink” will merge both its Zune as well as technology from their acquisition of Danger Inc., so pundits are coming out with their own views on the whole situation. These views take into account the irony of Danger’s co-founder, Andy Rubin, being one of the main brains behind the Android mobile operating system, while releasing the G1 via T-Mobile, whose corporate color is pink as well. Whispers abound that the Microsoft Pink will make a splash at CES 2009, although a February release is also on the cards. Hopefully Microsoft’s Pink will put up more of a fight against the iphone compared to the Zune’s pitiful sales performance against the ipod.

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Everyone ought to be in a festive mood now, never mind the fact that the world’s economic system is in the doldrums. After all, it takes more muscles to frown than to smile, so why not keep up the cheer? After all, life still goes on and I’m pretty sure that your family is going to hate you just because you can’t give as much to them materially as before, since they know you’ll always do your best in any situation. Well, nothing like a good bottle of wine to celebrate with good company during the holidays, and you can ensure safe delivery of these precious bottles with the WineCruzer 5-Pack Magnum Wine Carrying Case.

The WineCruzer 5-Pack Magnum Wine Carrying Case is the latest release from WineCruzer, and it claims to offer maximum protection against impact, vibration and thermal shock. Don’t worry about desperate (and thirsty) thieves sneaking away with a bottle or two, since this case can be further secured with a padlock. These corrosion-proof latches are a snap to open and close, ensuring the flow of good wine doesn’t stop abruptly to spoil the mood. As for the case itself, it comes equipped with sturdy polyurethane wheels with stainless steel bearings. In addition, it boasts a retractable extension handle that makes it a snap to tote around five of your most precious bottles in relative safety.

The thermally insulated dark-hue closed cell foam interior is able to shelter up to five magnum wine bottles, and has been extensively tested to regulate variations in temperature for those who are especially particular about their wines. Its virtually indestructible hard-shell case is able to take to the skies in any season or hemisphere with an unconditional lifetime warranty. You can always settle for much cheaper alternatives in the form of styrofoam containers, leather carriers, or picnic-type baskets, but these won’t do nuts when it comes to providing adequate protection. I’d go so far as to call this WineCruzer offering an investment.

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by Darren Murph, posted Nov 27th 2008 at 1:29AM
While this rumor hasn’t been running quite as long as the original iphone rumor, we’ve been brushing off whispers of the D3x for a really, really long time. For what it’s worth, the latest tidbit actually seems to have some teeth, with one eagle-eyed tipster noting that the website in the read link was alive momentarily, then canned inexplicably. He managed to grab the image you see above (but not the whole site?), and he swears up and down it wasn’t the Eggnog distorting his judgment. We’ll see, won’t we?

[Thanks, Darryl]

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Now here’s a rechargeable LED light for use in your vehicle whenever you’re traveling. After all, you never know when you might need something like this, as emergencies seem to occur at the most inconvenient of times. This nifty little device can be plugged into the vehicle’s 12V power outlet to be charged, and its high output .5 wall LED is bright enough to light up just about anywhere you point it to. The Spotlight is both waterproof and shockproof, thanks to its 6061 aluminum aircraft body. It isn’t too hot when it comes to charging though - 7 hours offers just 2 hours worth of light. If you’re interested, the Spotlight will retail for £12.95 a pop.

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FROM GAMERTELL - Target, Sears, and Kohl’s are each offering gamer-themed boxers packaged in cool tins to look like game controllers, guitars, and other cool stuff… MORE »

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Blu-ray has always been fighting against the tide, struggling against high prices, general reluctance to move on from DVDs, and now the “credit crunch” as well.  In fact, many people were beginning to think that the victory against HD-DVD may have been in vain due to the apparent lack of consumers, and that the aim of 5 million units to be sold this year was laughable.  However it would appear that both parties are in the process of being proved wrong with figures released by Sony showing some interesting truths.

Let’s take a look at how its predecessor is doing; it would appear that people are sticking to DVD in a way similar to how people stuck to VHS.  147 million DVD recorders/players were sold last year, which is still a massive amount (it is the same as half of America buying one).

However give credit where credit’s due, Sony has done very well (considering people’s reluctance to change plus the worsening economic climate) with the predicted end of year sales figure of 4.5 million units.  Admittedly, this is 30 times less than DVD players sold, but that is only around 10% off—not bad. 

But why are they not selling as well as they could be?  The main root cause has to be money and this is a threefold problem.  Not only do the actual Blu-ray players cost a significant amount (a lot more than their DVD counterparts) but the actual BDs can cost up to twice as much as a DVD.  This price falls into insignificance when you consider how much it would cost for the people who have to convert to a HDTV, as very few people are going to upgrade from their one year old flat screen LCD for $2000.  Couple this large cost with people’s “attachment” to DVDs and their unwillingness to spend money like in previous years then you will see this is a big problem for Blu-ray, although not one that is unsolvable. 

The cost of Blu-ray players is very likely to fall and this is most likely to happen after Thanksgiving to make the most of the run up to Christmas.  You could well see players at $150 next month, which should help to boost sales dramatically.  Movie studios are also under pressure to reduce prices and that may also encourage rental shops to start stocking more Blu-ray discs which will boost awareness as well as sales.

Source [GizmodoUK]

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