Technology nowadays can really spur creativity and there's nothing you can't do with a 3D printer, CAAD and some skills. Like a surveillance military robot.

The lucky and resourceful hacker in this case is one [Julien Schuermans], who managed to take home pieces of a multi-million dollar da Vinci Si surgical robot.

Traditionally, robot arms have been controlled either by joysticks, buttons, or very carefully programmed routines. However, for [Narongporn Laosrisin’s] homebrew build, they decided to go wi… ...

The Kinect's ability to map terrain in 3-D and to recognize and respond to human gestures could eventually be teamed up with aerial drones and rapid-response teams to launch rescue operations.

But up until now, these "robots" needed a direct contact with the person in control. This is where Madeline Gannon comes in, with her new gesture-based interface between humans and machines.

Tokyo University engineer Tsuyoshi Horo has developed a novel system for controlling robots (or in this case, a moving stool) using a simple set of hand and body gestures. The researcher is ...