Directives - Enterprise and Industry
Directives As a first step, you need to verify whether your product(s) fall(s) within the definition of an active implantable medical device in accordance with Article 1 paragraph 2a) to c) of Directive 90/385/EEC where also the term "active medical device" is defined. For a definition of "implantable device" see Annex IX, section I.1.2 of Directive 93/42/EEC on medical devices.
Every Kid Needs One of These DIY Robotics Kits
Robots are intimidating, and starting from scratch with them is hard, no matter what age you are. You usually have to learn both hardware and software at the same time to get a robot to do anything cool, and for people without a background in either of these things, surmounting that initial learning curve can be scary. BirdBrain Technologies, a spinoff from Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute, has just released a new DIY kit called Hummingbird that promises to make building a robot as easy (and affordable) as possible. As you'd expect, the Hummingbird kit involves both a hardware component and a software component.
TIE News
News 25/03/2014 Effective market surveillance stops substandard toys reaching children The European Union’s rapid alert system for dangerous consumer products (RAPEX) prevented many substandard toys from reaching European consumers last year, according to a European Commission report released (...)
Kinect Hackers Are Changing the Future of Robotics
The Kinect lets people navigate the digital world through gestures rather than mouseclicks.Illustration: Justin Wood For 25 years, the field of robotics has been bedeviled by a fundamental problem: If a robot is to move through the world, it needs to be able to create a map of its environment and understand its place within it. Roboticists have developed tools to accomplish this task, known as simultaneous localization and mapping, or SLAM.
About Toy Safety
News 25/03/2014 Effective market surveillance stops substandard toys reaching children The European Union’s rapid alert system for dangerous consumer products (RAPEX) prevented many substandard toys from reaching European consumers last year, according to a European Commission report released (...)
RAY KURZWEIL - That Singularity Guy - Vice Magazine
In the year 2050, if Ray Kurzweil is right, nanoscopic robots will be zooming throughout our capillaries, transforming us into nonbiological humans. We will be able to absorb and retain the entirety of the universe’s knowledge, eat as much as we want without gaining weight, shape-shift into just about any physical form imaginable, live free from disease, and die at the time of our choosing. All of this will be thrust on us by something that Kurzweil calls the Singularity, a theorized point in time in the not-so-distant future when machines become vastly superior to humans in every way, aka the emergence of true artificial intelligence. Computers will be able to improve their own source codes and hardware in ways we puny humans could never conceive. This will result in a paradigm shift that sees mankind coalescing with its own creations: man and machine, merging into one. That kind of correspondence will only be possible if we develop advanced artificial intelligence and nanotechnology.
About Toy Industries Europe
News 25/03/2014 Effective market surveillance stops substandard toys reaching children The European Union’s rapid alert system for dangerous consumer products (RAPEX) prevented many substandard toys from reaching European consumers last year, according to a European Commission report released (...) continue reading 21/03/2014 Toy sales flat in main European markets in 2013
Universal robotic gripper
Robert Barker/University Photography The human hand is an amazing machine that can pick up, move and place objects easily, but for a robot, this "gripping" mechanism is a vexing challenge. Opting for simple elegance, researchers from Cornell, the University of Chicago and iRobot Corp. have created a versatile gripper using everyday ground coffee and a latex party balloon, bypassing traditional designs based on the human hand and fingers.
