Slashdot Mirror

It's an ATTiny ($1.08 in quantities of 1) with V-USB (software only USB), most likely.

You could easily drive a strip, with animations and all, using a a cheap shift register or a dedicated led array driver.

The robot arm is straightforward. It looks like it's built out of Dynamixel servos, which are good little programmable servomotors used for the better end of hobbyist robotics. (After 25 years, finally something better than one-way pulse code modulation for hobby servo control. These things use a 1mb/s bidirectional multidrop serial bus.) There are standard brackets for making robot arms and legs, and it looks like they just bolted the thing together from the stock parts kit.

It's not clear how much the software knows about faces. That's the important part. Considerable work has been done on facial feature detection. There are commercial products available. Most of them ignore hairstyle, though, since they're aimed at face recognition.

here's a link to Omron site regarding their Face Recognition software. if anyone can navigate the Japanese site could glean us more information.

i'm wondering if the scanner is using some type of microexpression recognition to determine genuine smiles. I think this would be the state-of-the-art for facial scanners.

More links which I didn't bother to read...

hey kids, want to learn about the exciting world of automation? Here's a few links! Offtopic? Who cares!?

Omron
GE Industrial Systems or GE Fanuc
Rockwell Automation
Phoenix Contact
ABB
Nachi
Wieland

In case you're wondering, this is what I do for a living... And right now I'm very bored... Time to go home soon. Soon... soon...

The press release on Omron's web site gives more information, including a diagram that shows how the device functions. It appears to be a central LED device surrounded by a Fresnel mirror, with the mirror cavity filled by what I would presume to be a material similar to fiber-optic cladding. Light emitted from the LED is reflected off the surface of the cavity-fill material, then bounces off the Fresnel mirror, which focuses the light into a reasonably unidirectional beam; a single unit is 30mm on a side, with a thickness of 6mm.

Here's a Better link to the story on Omron's web site.

And, "a company called Omron"? Have you not heard of Omron? They're just one of the biggest companies in controllers and industrial automation.

Neco = cat(japanese), ro from robot. site Same mistake in the zdnet article, extremely similar to the linked yahoo article if you ask me.. :) .. Thanx Reuters..

Here, with specs and a decent photo.

Haven't seen any "pussy" jokes here yet... unless they're all moderated down to -2?!

The name of the company is Omron, not Toshihiro Tashima! That's the name of the guy that invented the cat. Sheesh! The news behind the news behind the news. Yeah right...