Collaborate Disseminate
Being a Disney Imagineer, Lanny Smoot is, as he says, “in service of people having fun.” And he’s nothing if not industrious. His long career as a theatrical technology creator, investor, electrical engineer, scientist, and researcher has resulted in a… Continue reading Lanny Smoot: First Disney Imagineer inducted into Inventors Hall of Fame
Holograms are one of sci-fi’s longest promised technologies, and one of real science’s longest-running disappointments. Scientists at Cambridge and Disney Research may be a step closer to making them less disappointing, creating new “holobricks” that c… Continue reading Disney’s “Holobricks” could stack up for larger holograms
What’s the biggest problem right now with humanoid robots? They fall down. Disney seems to have solved that problem here by making robots that are meant to fall down and be caught by a net. Disney’s research arm (you may know them as Imagineers) is showing off a robot called Stuntronic which can perform controlled somersaults as it flies through the air. Check the video below, you really have to watch a few times to make sure this is a robot and not a person.
It’s really interesting to follow the evolution of this robot. It began with BRICK, a …read more
Continue reading Disney’s Humanoid Stunt Robots Throw Multiple Backflips No Sweat
Disney is working on modular, intelligent robot limbs that snap into place with magnets. The intelligence comes from a reasonable sized neural network that also incorporates some modularity. The robot is their Snapbot whose base unit can fit up to eight of limbs, and so far they’ve trained with up to three together.
The modularity further extends to a choice of three types of limb. One with roll and pitch, another with yaw and pitch, and a third with roll, yaw, and pitch. Interestingly, of the three types, the yaw-pitch one seems most effective.
In this age of massive, deep …read more
Continue reading Disney’s New Robot Limbs Trained Using Neural Networks
Wireless power transfer exists right now, but it’s not as cool as Tesla’s Wardenclyffe tower and it’s not as stupid as an OSHA-unapproved ultrasonic power transfer system. Wireless power transfer today is a Qi charger for your phone. It’s low power – just a few amps — and very short range. This makes sense; after all, we’re dealing with the inverse square law here, and wireless power transfer isn’t very efficient.
Now, suddenly, we can transfer nearly two kilowatts wirelessly to electronic baubles scattered all over a room. It’s a project from Disney Research, it’s coming out of Columbia University, …read more
Continue reading Suddenly, Wireless Power Transmission Is Everywhere