Batter up! Robot baseball takes a swing

It's good to see the recession in Japan hasn't killed robot research, even though many machines are now standing idle, as the New York Times reported recently.

The University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Information Science and Technology has produced a pitcher and batter robot duo that quick and precise.

The pitcher machine can send the ball into the strike zone 90% of the time. The batter, meanwhile, uses imaging technology that captures 1,000 frames per second to enable it to connect to the ball.

All they need is uniforms and they'll be ready for the big leagues.

The Osaka Kid: better, stronger, faster

He's back, and better than ever.

The wizards at Team Osaka, mentioned in an earlier post, have again unveiled an improved version of their champion soccer-playing robot, Vision. The past three versions came out winners in their RoboCup robot soccer tournament category. RoboCup's purpose is to develop a team of robot footballers that can beat the best humans at the sport by 2050 (and then take over the world...maybe).

Vision 4G can run 30% faster than its previous incarnation, its joints have 40% stronger torque, its has a lighter CPU and a new forward-looking camera, in addition to its 360-degree head cam, to better track the ball. There's a cool video of 4G showing off here.