Planet CNET: Watch and squirm Video

Planet CNET: Watch and squirm Video Transcript

>> [ music ] ^m00:00:07 Hey there I'm Kara Tsuboi reporting from CNET headquarters in San Francisco. Welcome to Planet CNET, our weekly show where we bring you reports from CNET editors around the globe. We've got some great stories lined up for you today that will make you sing, dance, and squirm. Let's kick it off in Singapore.

>> Hi, I'm John Chan CNET Asia. Singapore may be a small country, but it has some big ideas coming out of it. This may look like an overloaded Big Mac, but in reality it's a pair of tiny stereo speakers which recently earned itself a coveted red dot design award. The secret to it's big sounds lies in this accordion like vacuum chamber that you twist to extend, closed this doesn't take up much space and it's pretty affordable, at Singapore 69 dollars or about 50 U. S. dollars. Because of how loud it is, these X-Mini Max capsule speakers would use the sound coming from your notebook that's used for if you're doing a presentation in a meeting room or to share your music with your friends. But what if you're out here at a noisy underpass, how would these speakers fare then? To test this out, we had our very own master on an electric piano to see if these have enough oomph to draw a crowd. ^m00:01:12 [ electric piano ] ^m00:01:15 [ singing ]

>> We're no strangers to love, you know the rules and so do I, never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around, desert you, never gonna make you cry, never gonna.

>> It's pretty obvious; you can use these speakers to make a living as a musician. CNET UK's dancing robot made more money than our singer did, but still we recommend it to excellent presentation.

>> Looks like some cute little speakers, if there's one thing you're gonna take away from that video, it's that rick rolling is still an international phenomena. Aye yi yi. Now moving on to France, our CNET editor there is crazy about a new smart phone that can receive digital television. Check it out. ^m00:02:02 [ music ] ^m00:02:05

>> I know what you're thinking; this French girl is listening to a lame radar tuner. Wrong, that only is the gigabyte GSmart T600, a radio and a camera? But it's also the first smart phone to broadcast digital and Paris role TV which means we're gonna be watching the Olympic games. Once you identify as a telescope antennae used for DVT is also a stylus for the touch screen, so we're gonna be sending you an email thanks to this wonderful VG screen, to inform you of the defeat of Katy Hoff by La Manadu. Be prepared. ^m00:02:43 [ music ] ^m00:02:46 This is Louise Ghegan for CNET France, thanks for watching. ^m00:02:51

>> Starting a friendly rivalry between our Olympic swimmers, I see. Well considering the dive the dollar is taking against the Euro, I will not be betting against you any time soon Louise. Finally I've got my own contribution to the show this week; it's straight from some of the top American minds in robot technology. And just to let you know, this is the squirm portion of our show today.

>> You're looking at video of me shot on the end of a snake inspired robot that could one day be used in search and rescue operations.

>> What's nice about this robot is not only can you thread through tightly packed volumes, but you could achieve a variety of locomotion capabilities that other mechanisms can't.

>> Inspired by snakes, Professor Howie Choset's robots are so cool and so mesmerizing to watch.

>> There's certainly no robot in the world that can climb a pole like this. In fact, one thing you may have noticed is that the robot gingerly walks to the pole and then climbs up it. It was able to exhibit that behavior transition.

>> Besides climbing around a pole, this snake bot outfitted with a camera, can climb vertically through a tube like a drain pipe.

>> The idea is that there's this collapsed building and you want to get into this collapsed structure as quickly as possible in order to locate victims.

>> Also coming out of Professor Choset's lab at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh, are snake bots to help in medicine.

>> This robot here is both rigid and flexible so if you want to have a heart operation for example, instead of cracking the chest and prying your ribs open you can enter through the subxiphoid process.

>> For surgery, the robot is shrunk down to 12 millimeters in diameter. Here's video of it operating on a pig's heart, eventually when used on humans Choset says it will have major health and economic benefits. The snake is not the first animal to inspire robots and now it joins the gecko and certain insects and fish that have all lent their unique abilities and design features to modern technology.

>> Oh and one more thing, these snake bots are also being used in the military to help with life support when an injured soldier is being taken to medical help. Some pretty cool stuff. I will see you next time on Planet CNET where we'll see the latest from CNET London, Sydney, and Tokyo. I'm Kara Tsuboi, CNET San Francisco. [ music ]