Video: Robot operating system

Being one of a kind has its downsides (Image: Aldebaran Robotics)

THE UBot whizzes around a carpeted conference room on its Segway-like wheels, holding aloft a yellow balloon. It hands the balloon to a three-fingered robotic arm named WAM, which gingerly accepts the gift.

Cameras click. “It blows my mind to see robots collaborating like this,” says William Townsend, CEO of Barrett Technology, which developed WAM.

The robots were just two of the multitude on display last month at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) in Pasadena, California. But this happy meeting of …