Nxtbot.com

After using Yahoo! web hosting for Nxtbot.com for more than three years, I’ve decided it’s time to move to a more capable web host. I’ve been using Dreamhost for some of my other blogs, so I’ve decided to move everything together.

What does this mean for you? Given that some changes will need to be made to DNS records for the move, you may run into a glitch or two when visiting the site.

Apologies in advance for the inconvenience!

After a lengthy hiatus, Nxtbot.com will soon be updated with a new look, much more content, and lots of other long-overdue improvements. Before all that can happen, however, some sorely needed maintenance is in order.

If any of you reading this happen to have a blog, you’ll understand what an evil scourge spam comments are. I typically see hundreds of them every day, and they quickly clog up the the admin side of things. Who wants to spend 30 minutes a day searching through piles of spam to find a handful of legitimate comments? Not me, so I decided to install a comment spam filter.

There are a bunch of spam filters out there, but I decided on reCAPTCHA, a nifty blog spam blocker developed by some big-brained folks at Carnegie Mellon University. You’ve undoubtedly seen these before: now that reCAPTCHA is installed, you’ll need to decipher two blurry text strings (see static image above for an example) before you can post comments on the site. It’s a small inconvenience, but it saves us all from the scourge of blog spam.

What really impressed me about reCAPTCHA is that is actually does something with all of our fuzzy-word deciphering efforts. All of those words we decipher are actually being spit out by an OCR program that is having trouble deciphering them. In essence, we ‘re all helping digitize literary works for a good cause, and reCAPTCHA makes that possible.

Here’s a blurb from the reCAPTCHA side that explains things better than I can:

About 60 million CAPTCHAs are solved by humans around the world every day. In each case, roughly ten seconds of human time are being spent. Individually, that’s not a lot of time, but in aggregate these little puzzles consume more than 150,000 hours of work each day. What if we could make positive use of this human effort? reCAPTCHA does exactly that by channeling the effort spent solving CAPTCHAs online into “reading” books.  

So there you have it. Now that I’ve sorted my spam problems, it’s time to get working on that new site logo…. [- Jeff James]

Since iRobot decided to release its iRobot Create do-it-yourself robot kit, robotics fans everywhere have been brainstorming the possibilities of what they could concoct with this relatively affordable Scooba/Roomba device. And, it sparked at least one challenge sponsored by Tom’s Hardware, the iRobot Create Challenge.

Just what is that challenge? Well, they “threw down the gauntlet” (in their own words) to Roomba hackers around the globe a short while back, prodding them to get involved in iRobot’s contest, which ended June 30, to come up with the most remarkable robot possible with the Create platform. Booty for the winner is the tidy sum of $5,000.

Since that time, ideas, submissions and accomplishments have been coming in and the folks at Tom’s Hardware decided to share a few of the more public ones with its readers (some contestants are staying tight-lipped on their creations). Among the offerings are iRobots that play tennis, scan homes for intruders, recreate art or digital photos, assist people with disabilities and, surely one of the best, a robotic pooper scooper (provided it’s not too proactive in its duties). For the full scoop, check out Tom’s Hardware and the iRobot Create Challenge forums. (Source: Tom’s Hardware) – [Chuck Miller]

The ubiquitous Energizer bunny — who has obviously been going, going and going for some time now — has teamed up with the LEGO Group to offer Mindstorms NXT purchasers a special offer this holiday season.

During the month of December, LEGO and Energizer have joined forces to offer a free NXT Power Pack  – which includes a light sensor, a tounch sensor and an 8-pack of Energizer e2 Lithium batteries — simply for providing proof of purchase of a new Mindstorms NXT set purchased between December 1 and December 31 from the following retailers:

• Amazon.com
• Apple – Apple.com
• Best Buy – BestBuy.com
• CompUSA – CompUSA.com
• eToys.com
• Target – Target.com
• Toys “R” Us – ToysRUs.com
• Wal-Mart -Wal-Mart.com

Purchased separately the items would be worth about $50, so prospective NXT purchasers may want to check this one out. Visit the NXT Power Pack site for more info and a downloadable offer form. (Source: LEGO Group) – [Jeff James]

^{photo: © Energizer}

With the recent release of the Mindstorms NXT, a number of new NXT-specific blogs and websites have begun appearing on the web. The Mindstorms NXT Review offers up regular posts and commentary on what’s new and upcoming in the NXT community, while Nxtasy.org also provides some compelling news and content, teamed with a slick, attractive site design.

As always, if you know about a blog or website that covers Mindstorms, the new NXT or hobby/consumer robotics in general, drop us a note and we’ll add it to the blogroll. – [Jeff James]

As we inch closer to the launch of the new Mindstorms NXT later this fall, we’d like to take a nostalgic look back at some of the best creations from the last generation of Mindstorms. Many of us have seen some incredible Mindstorms constructs over the years, ranging from Rubik’s cube solvers and copiers to ATMs and Segway clones.

Here’s the deal: Beginning Monday, May 15th we’ll begin spotlighting one amazing, old school Mindstorms creation per week, based solely on the existing RCX. If you have an impressive, wacky or just plain cool Mindstorms creation — or know someone who does — please comment on this post with the info, or drop me an email at jeff [@] nxtbot.com.

We’d ideally need a few paragraphs describing the creation, as well as 2-3 high-quality digital photos. -  [ Jeff James]

We’re live from the 2006 Make Magazine Maker Faire in sunny — make that “partly cloudy” — San Mateo, California. I’ve already consumed a greasy corndog and overpriced soda in my search for cool robotics and nifty gadgets today, and will have much to report on in the next 48 hours. (Hopefully more newsworthy items than my indigestion!)

If you’d like to discuss the Maker Faire, leave a shout out in the comments section. – [Jeff James]

Always attracted to new robotic gadgets (and other bright and shiny objects), nxtbot.com will be paying a visit to the MAKE Magazine Maker Faire being held this upcoming April 22-23 at the San Mateo Fairgrounds in San Mateo, California.

The event promises to be stuffed to the gills with all sorts of new gadget demonstrations, workshops, presentations and scads of other stuff for those of us that like that sort of thing. A good number of robotics events and exhibits are scheduled; check out the current list here for more details.

We’ll be posting live from the show on Saturday (and possibly a bit on Sunday, as well), so be sure to check out nxtbot.com a time or two this weekend. – [Jeff James]

After being suitably impressed by a recent episode of the History Channel’s Super Tools program that discussed the wonders of robotic arc welding and plasma cutting, some quick research turned up a robotics firm not far from the nxtbot.com home office that develops robotic welding hardware. After a quick email exchange to get acquainted with the team there, we’ve scheduled a visit to the Wolf Robotics plant this week. 

We’ll hopefully grab some photos and video of some robotic welding equipment, interview some Wolf Robotics engineers, and then post the results of our adventure here on nxtbot.com later in the week. If you have any burning questions about robotic welding that you’d like to have answered, please add them to the post comments. – [Jeff James]

I’d like to welcome author Gareth Branwyn as our first guest blogger on nxtbot.com. Gareth is currently the “Cyborg-in-Chief” of the popular Street Tech personal technology review site, and is also the author of The Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Building Robots. Gareth has been a writer and columnist on tech culture for 12 years, contributing to such publications as Wired and O’Reilly’s Make magazine. He’s also authored a number of other books, including The Happy Mutant Handbook (co-edited with the editors of Boing Boing) and one of the first books about the web: Mosaic Quick Tour: Accessing and Navigating the World Wide Web.

I’m delighted to have Gareth bring his own insightful perspective on personal and consumer robotics to nxtbot.com, and I hope you’ll all give him a warm welcome!  [Jeff James]