This is breaking news. Robodance 5 is ready. It has much more features and supports the latest WowWee Rovio. For those who do not know, Robodance is a free software that utilise Skype as a mean of communication with your robot.
Click Here to Learn more about Rovio
From RobotsRule,
The official feature list for the latest version of Robodance is live now. Robodance 5 is the powerful software program that lets people really take control of their consumer and home entertainment robots while getting a lot more fun and functionality out of them. Best of all, it’s completely free and will be released at the end of March 2009. However, a pilot program will begin at the end of January 2009 for those brave souls that like to help test pre-release software.
More information after the break.
I will copy the official release email from Robert to me.
NOTE: To run Robodance with Skype you need a PC connected to your home network running Windows 2000 or better. Robodance “picks up the phone” and handles the incoming Skype video call session. The remote device can be any web enabled device capable of running Skype’s video call service.
The feature list is far too long to list completely but here are few of the highlights to whet your appetite for technolust:
– Rovio users will delight in Robodance’s Skype support for Rovio. By using Skype, the need to expose Rovio’s ports to the Internet (port forwarding) for remote access is eliminated. Also eliminated is the need for a Dynamic domain forwarding service to create a public URL to get to Rovio externally. This frees the Rovio owner from having to learn the intricacies of their router in order to forward those ports, and eliminates the need to set up Rovio to interface with a Dynamic domain forwarding service too. All that is required are two Skype accounts with different user names. Skype is free and is tremendously easy to install. (The remote access device must be capable of running Skype’s video call service.)
– Rovio users can now have good quality audio in both directions regardless of what web browser they are using remotely. Currently, without Robodance, they have to run Internet Explore 6 or newer and the audio is not as good as it is with Skype (Skype has had years to work on their audio quality).
– Rovio users can now access their Rovios from a public WiFi access point much more safely because their login user name and password, video stream, and audio stream are encrypted by Skype. Without Robodance’s Skype support those items are transmitted in unencrypted form, leaving their connection open to monitoring by WiFi hackers using “sniffers”. Since the login details are sent in plain text, a hacker could gain access to their Rovio. The use of Skype virtually eliminates this vulnerability.
– New robots have been added to Robodance’s support list: Rovio, Roboboa, Femisapien, U-Command Wall-E, Tri-Bot and Wrex The Dawg.
– A new redesigned interface that is much sleeker and easier to use then older versions.
– The brand new powerful Command Block creator allows Hackers, Developers, and Tweakers to greatly extend Robodance’s capabilities. New Command Blocks can be used in scripts just like any of the Command Blocks in the built-in library. Command Blocks can:
* Execute HTTP commands and scrape the results from the returned document. For example, you could scrape your local weather page and have your robot tell you the current forecast using Text To Speech. This includes the abilty to access Web Based services that accept requests and return data via HTTP requests, like Twitter, Flickr, Yahoo’s extensive set of services, and much more.
* Run programs on the Local PC
* Run Python scripts and pass information back and forth between them, including Voice Control commands and more.
All user created Command Blocks have complete and full access to Robodance’s advanced audio handling platform which includes speech recognition, Skype audio handling, wave file playing and recording, and Text To Speech.
And much more. Remember, Robodance already had these powerful features:
– Voice control for all supported robots
– Nintendo Wii Remote control for all supported robots (A Nintendo Wii remote is required and a Bluetooth transceiver, but the Wii console is not required).
– Advanced drag and drop GUI based script editor
– The ability to share scripts and Command Blocks via an online database
– Support for Robosapien, Robosapien V2, i-SOBOT, Robopet, Roboraptor, Roboreptile, Roboquad and Animatronics T-Rex.
– and more.
For complete details on Robodance 5 or to sign up for the Robodance newsletter to be notified when it is ready for download, user’s should visit:
http://www.robodance.com/robodance-5.php
For answers to questions about Robodance, visit our forum:
http://www.robocommunity.com/forums/52/Robodance/threads_all
For information on WowWee’s Rovio spy robot:
http://www.robodance.com/html/rovio.php
Thanks Robert for the lead. 🙂
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