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R2D2 Beer Getting Machine
defectorg writes "R2-D2 Interactive Astromech Droid is coming to us this summer.
Equipped with innovative speech recognition technology, infrared scanning technology and working sonar navigation, this R2-D2 recognizes 40 spoken phrases, plays six exciting games, and sings three tunes. It even has a retractable arm that lets it hold a 12-ounce beverage!
Now this would be a nice thing to hack wireless lan iinto, let it notify new mail, read news and most important, ~/bin/let_r2d2_get_a_cold_beer_somehow.pl."
mmm... beer what about a coffee dispensor?
I KNEW R2 was always meant to serve drinks...
for the special edition version coming in the winter.
fortune++;
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
I am a sentient ATM
combine C3PO and R2D2 together and you got yourself a wife.. beer getting robot + bitchy robot = wife :-)
Now all we need it to do is fetch topless dancers.
I want a R2D2 that has a "Bring me Natalie Portman" option.
"Chances of RHIC-induced Armageddon are exceedingly rare, but... you never know." - MIT Physicist Bob Jaffe
and most important, ~/bin/let_r2d2_get_a_cold_beer_somehow.pl."
This reminds me of a recent Coors (I think) ad, where the central character is showing off to these two girls how his trained falcon can fetch him a bottle of beer. After two passes, one asks, "So, where does he get the beer?" and the guy, with this dumbfounded look, beings to ponder...
Meanwhile, a streetside cafe and its patrons are being terrorized by an invading falcon who, after flapping and clawing in a few customers' faces, picks up one of their beers and flies off...
walmart used to have it... here is googles cache hope they start selling again (maybe they sold out of pre order hehe) http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:sxBRnvzxeosC: www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp%3Fproduct_id%3 D1819726%26cat%3D92527%26type%3D1%26dept%3D4171%26 path%3D0%253A4171%253A92533%253A92527+Star+Wars+Ep isode+II:+R2-D2+Interactive+Droid+&hl=en&ie=UT F-8
First thing to mind was to get this thing to slap my face when I fall asleep at the computer, working on another endless project. That would be nice, so I don't wake up with my head on the keyboard having typed 30,000 lines of code, tossing and turning in my sleep. That isn't fun at all.
Frist prosst
if R2D2 isn't actually a big dildo for star wars fans
If only it was a little bigger, maybe 2 or 3 feet tall... then it would have enough room to stick the base of an iMac in his head with a nice 17" flat-panel screen sticking out the top, nice GUI, BSD under the hood, 802.11 built in...
Ahhh, someday I will build my own droid. Then...uhh... phase 3: Profit!
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
But this one does. Not cool.
"With its rich heritage, an incredible fantasy, and gripping story lines, Star Wars is the ultimate property on which to base a toy line," said Brian Goldner, President of Hasbro's U.S. toys group.
:)
Its a good thing that someone's staying on top of these news breaking events! There's rumors that action figures might be popular too. Better look into it!
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
How can they offer high-caliber infrared and sonar capabilities at this price? I'd imagine that the licensing (for the Star Wars name, likeness, etc.) is accounting for a good 33% of costs... do, basically, 60 dollars for efficent and "sophisticated" abilities? Either they're losing money or misrepresenting the abilities of Mr. D2.
OMG, I've always wanted one of these, I just didn't know it!
Imagine, my own beer-fetching robot for less than $100!
I can see how they invented this one. It all started at a company party, where a bunch of Star Wars fans watched on, plastered, and decided that instead of themselves getting up to the cooler, they needed 'that goddamn robot over there' to get it.
Of course, we must remember that the guys that built the trebuchet big enough to hurl the Buick 200 yards also came up with their brilliant idea while hammered too.
What alcohol can do.
Anonymous Coward: (n.) 1. nerd at school or library. 2. karmawhore in training. 3. embarrased prep.
to find a way to write 20,000 lines of code to preform a task as simple as walking to the fridge...
on how long before George Lucas sues? Remember the laser used in surgery(?) those guys called it a 'light saber' and got a fat law suit from lucasarts? mmhmm..
Not that it doesn't address a wide variety of technical issues.
and technology should be fun
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Do I get a real Kenny Baker, too????!!!??
I want to know when they're releasing the beer-fetching Princess Leia.
can you meta moderate for me today?
Bleep bleep.
Efren Belizario
headspeak.com
Seriously, I used to hang out on alt.games.creatures -- they must be going ape over there now, although oddly I see no mention of this in that group on google. JRChat too.
(Creatures Labs is the maker of the "Creatures" series of video games.)
OT: I think that newsgroup has the longest single consecutive running internet discussion ever: "[JNCOBOY] EVERYONE READ!!!! " Google lists almost 5000 posts archived, and it's been going since sometime in the mid-90's, IIRC. I guess that's the stability of USENET for you.
My Blog: http://nic.dreamhost.com/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm not most knowledgable on the subject -- but in my job we use both SONAR and RADAR..and I've never seen SONAR used anywhere but in the water.
At 15" tall it is not tall enough to get into my fridge and get me my beer, nor to hand it to me when I am sitting comfortably on the couch.
Man, please tell me that American television commercials are not as bad as this
u ct _id=1819726
:-)
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?prod
it reminds me of a "commercial" in a South Park episode a couple seasons back.
Bad TV aside though, it kinds looks very cheesy as a toy itself. It needs to be scaled up for the adults in the audience, to have more "intelligence", can the "dance program", and R2's cool hologram projector wouldn't be bad either please
NZ Electronics Enthusiasts: Check out my Trade Me Listings
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these R2D2 robots!
Hehe, I'm waiting for C3P0 to come out, so I can introduce him to my 33oz 29" Aluminum stress reliever*. I'm sure he'll like it.
Most. Annoying. Droid. Ever.
*also known as a bat. Comes in a variety of sizes and shapes, even made of wood! Bonus!
Sent from your iPad.
Come on that the coolest part about R2D2. they speak in bindary. That way only true geeks can understand them right away. And lets not forget that R2D2 is also a hacker, he was always breaking thought secrity and doing cool hacking stuff.
Can it fly like R2 in Episode 2? What's THAT all about?!?
--the life sized, anatomically-correct beer-fetching Princess Leia. What *wouldn't* I pay for that??
Anyone else having issues with this site crashing i.e. when trying to view the movie demo. It appears there isn't a movie available under koqueror or netscape in linux. Gota love wally world were they sell it but obviously don't support it.
IIRC Nolan Bushnell was developing a similar robot in the early 80's. And at the time it's ONLY selling point was the ability to fetch beer.
Subverting the meta-moderating system since 2003
~/bin/r2d2_fondle_genitals.pl
There's still world hunger! Some people don't even have clean water! Get back to work!
This sounds to me like too little, too late.
Robots like this one (and much more sophisticated) have been sold in Japan since at least 1985. I bought a semi-autonomous robot back in 1987 dubbed Kikuzo that recognized 8 spoken phrases, was configurable to recognize its owners voice, played games, and was able to pick-up and release small objects. Very cool. The robot cost me about $100.00 at the Beverly Centre in Beverly Hills, at a store that specialized in Japanese gadgets.
Kikuzo is fully programmable and it acts/reacts to voice commands. Its cordless "microphone" used a 9 V battery, and the 25 cm. tall robot itself runs on four 1.5 V C batteries. It features:
Check out this guy's page for infos: http://www.geocities.co.jp/HeartLand-Gaien/6415/ki kuzo.html -- the page is in Japanese, but it has lots of pretty pictures.
While this is sort of cool, I would expect this R2-D2 to be a quantum leap over my trusty Kikuzo. We even "dissected" Kikuzo for one of my computer engineering classes (logical design) in the university (and later put him back together). We defined a cordless interface so you could program and command him from a PC (MS-DOS -- this was back in late 1988).
Granted, R2-D2 has a richer vocabulary than Kikuzo, but both respond to voice commands and play games, etc. I don't see myself spending money on such a limited R2-D2 since my Kikuzo would probably kick its arse. Offer me something as sophisticated as Aibo and then we'll talk. Meanwhile, Kikuzo even has collector's value.
Cheers!
Ehttp://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
... it'll end up in the closet once I get a gf. Unless she's one of those feminist types that thinks I should get beer on me own. Oh well, none of us can really be that picky.
Ou est le?
I would rather have a bender robot with a small refrigerator inside that hatch he has. That should keep the beer cool and nice during the day.
Then again, R2D2's bleeps are probably nicer to listen to than Bender's neverending sarcastic comments. And he'd probably drink all the bear himself.
A Beowolfe cluster of these little guys can bring me a case of Guinness?
A C3PO droid with all three inputs.
C3PO: "I don't know why I ever put up with you."
Me: "Cuz you love it, baby!!"
Do you remember the Omnibot and Omnibot 2000? I see this thing going the way of them. Though early on, I see them selling well. Heck, with a sub $100 price tag, you can't go wrong. But I am sure the novelty will wear off soon enough.
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
to programme ALL your remote controls into its Infrared system and then voice activate everything! (TV, VCR, DVD, PS2, AC... ).
:-)
The next thing to do is hard wire an IR reciever in to the wife's brain so she'd finally do as she's told! Then she can get the beer...
ys
-- "To ask a question is to show ignorance; Not to ask a question means you'll remain ignorant."
The R2-D2 Interactive Astromech Droid is ... 15-inch-plus ... packed with spunk .... answers to your call and obeys your
commands.
mmm, packed with spunk, and obeys your command. take note ladies!!
Remember the Sail Barge? Jabba had it right! R2's only meant to serve drinks!
"R2! Get me a beer! What?!?! Coors?!? You know I only drink Guiness!"
Of course, I'd need him to come with a built in Ewok-shocker too. Those damn things are always getting into the beer. You have got to have defenses against drunk ewoks. It's not a pretty picture.
Only drunken programmers could explain some of their most recently discovered bugs.
Perhaps they should invest in some breathalyzers instead.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Required background reading for this /. story: the late, great Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore's Gallegher
series of stories. (You may remember the authors from such sci-fi classics as The Twonky or All Mimsy Were The Borogoves.)
Although I'm afraid I've given a punchline away just via the pointer here...
R2-D2 can follow a series of commands
I have never seen R2-D2 going up or down stairs in the Star War movies, but he does go from one level to the next. If R2-D2 can follow a series of commands, can I tell him to go upstairs and get me a mountain dew?
I want my R2 totally equipped with the side boosters and the ability to fire a light saber across the Sarlaac pit monster. Until then, I'll get my own damn beer.
1) R2D2 clones serve drinks at parties
2) ????
3) Profit
I am the nightmare of nightmares.
Sure, a droid is just fine and dandy, but I want my X-wing, and I want it now.
In Soviet Russia, Beowulf cluster imagines you!
The R2 unit is giving me horrible horrible furby flashbacks.
"Ka may may ooh nai"
AHHHHHH!!!!!!!
would it be smart enough to let the wookie win? ;)
One thing we love R2D2 is that it has one thing unfound in any real/imaginative robots
ATTITUDE
It'd be cool if this little thingy has this characteristic: like throw the beer on his master's face on bad day, or give his master a push when he's near the windows....etc.
Probably.As someone who has been involved with a company developing a new toy and attempting to work with Hasbro (and their only competition)on something "new", it will be interesting to see how good this is. From our experience Hasbro's marketing direction will be to totally minimise useful technical features and max up on promoting a particular line, be it StarWars, Lincoln Logs or some other highly marketable theme. What they wanted at the end of the day was a poor cousin of what was proposed. They simply didn't want a toy with smarts (good luck Creature Labs, been there, done that) or one that was radical with features link wireless links, unique and evolving personality or enough RAM (let alone FLASH RAM) to do somehting useful with. Just look how far Furby has evolved since it's big hit, or those other crappy "Techno" clones. New development and improvement has decreasing returns and is hard work, especially once the novelty wears off and there's competition from the next movie/cartoon series.
And BTW, the raw material cost, including plstic body, motors etc, is about 10% of final on-shelf cost. It's amazing how cheap some of these bits of electronics are in volume.And don't forget the sweat shops they are assembled in.
Only ten months since the Attack on America, and you guys are getting all excited about an R2D2 Beer Getting Machine? People like you make me sick.
Get a life. Seriously.
I was fortunate enough to visit creaturelabs in cambridge, to see this item being developed in late 2000, on a visit discuss new and exciting things. The robot we saw was very crude, but was certainly begining to take shape. I don't recall what cpu it used but the ammount of RAM it ws using was incredibly small for such a sophisticated unit. I had almost forgotten about this unit, however, looking at the pricetag, I don't think I'll have to wait much longer :)
... is obviously pre-pubescent boys.
I think this product should be boycotted for the advertising alone ("Every boy needs a droid!"), let alone the fact that Wal-Mart are selling it.
now if somebody could build a fufme, i'd have the complete package
.smell my feet.
Cool, so this is what Creature Labs is up to. I've been meaning to check up on the company ever since I read Steve Grand's book, and now I know what he's up to. For those who don't know, Grand is an AI researcher who wrote large chunks of the game Creatures, which is an AI game where you raise these animals, Tomogatchi-style, and they interact with their world.
He left to work at Creature Labs, and I guess R2 is one of their big things. With his experience, I'd imagine that R2 has very well done AI, and might even show some hint of a personality beyond simple beer-fetcher, which befits the "real" R2 that we all know and love.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
http://www.r2droidfactory.com/
It's still pretty unfinished but occording to the website
* State-of-the-art, fully operational droid is your interactive, intergalactic friend!
* Responds to more than 40 commands!
* Plays lots of fun games with you! Sings and plays music, too!
* Fully navigational - can find and follow you anywhere!
Well you are not the first who thinks r2d2 is best used for serving dirnks. Jaba did just this. And look what happend to him.
/. with all its attention to r2d2.
The replubilc caomes to a a downfall. and they use r2d2 for ship mechanics. what happens to the repuclic.... right: downfall.
wonders what happens to
the damn thing need to be able to carry a full keg up a flight of stairs. if not then i'll ulilize younger siblings.
Lizard "Never let them set limits on your mind!"
Watch R2D2 video demo
"Preorder this item today, and it will ship to arrive on or just after the release date of 8/26/2002."
but, I want mine now....R2 bring me the beer...R2!! R2...where the hell is that robot...oh no, thats right I have to wait for it...grrr...
but its a start, for every star wars fan out there! its definately a must have..now if they could make it large enough to have a cooler inside instead of going back and forth between the fridge and my computer desk I'd get my drinks faster!
-Alicia
I want them to make a C3P0 model. With it understanding 6 million forms of communication, it's only a matter of time for 3P0 to decipher all those SlashCode Perl modules I've been trying to understand.
Then 3p0 tells me that the modules are really written in Brainf*ck. That's okay. 3p0 can decipher that for me too.
But for now, I'll pay to have r2d2 use its electric circuits to shock random people who come to my doorstep. That'll teach'em a lesson for making fun of my Star Wars lunchbox!
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
This could be a case of life imitating art. Somehow I get the feeling that this little R2 lookalike will be the launch pad for actual R2 type droids. If there is sufficient robotics research into this, they may turn something like this 'can with wheels' into something that can serve drinks, take food orders, etc.
It always seems that progress is found in the most unusual places: Porn Industry -> DVD.
Maybe the toy industry will yeild a whole slew of useful robots in the next 10 years or so.
Yeah, that's great. Too bad it won't go get my damn beverage for me. You still need some sucker to load him up with Dr. Pepper or what have u.
Zilch
If they can retrofit a flat head and a mouth with lips, I'll be the first in line to buy it.
He used to create games like creatures and ran this cool company creaturelabs and now hes selling R2D2-Beerbots at Walmart...reality got him, at last.
cu,
Lispy
Is dwelling on the past so much that you are unable to move forward. I remember what happened 10 months ago, but if I let that run my life. My life will have no meaning.
You sir, or madam, are the sick one. Go get some help for yourself.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Somehow always had that phrase in my head since my childhood - friend around the block had a transport vehicle with multiple sound clips in it (one of those "press this plastic spring button, and it'll play one of those plastic records" type deals.)
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
You know that commercial where the guy has the hawk that gets him beer? He tells it to get him a beer, and he doesn't know where the beer comes from. Meanwhile the hawk is terrorizing downtown restaurants getting the beer... I can see the comedic potential in the same thing happening here:
Robot comes back, a little dusty, one of the wheels is squeaking, holding a frosty cold one. Pan to the outside world, there's a robot-sized hole in a Semi, cars turned upside down, police cruisers arriving on scene, and a minority guy standing outside of a liquor store with smoke pouring out of the broken front door.
Moral: beer is worth any price.
Synergy is your friend
I seem to recall that in the early-80's, HeathKit was marketing a robot with similar capabilities. You would think that in the intervening two decades, this entire concept would have been improved a bit.
Actually, the old Mattel Big Trak's also were shown in the commercials as being able to do this (and I'm sure that I'm not the only young child to discover that the amazing ability to sense the presence of stairs and stop, was something that only worked in the commercials). Now I'm actually wondering if the bot will actually open the fridge and get the beer, or if you still need someone in the kitchen to service the bot.
-Tensai
I was in fifth grade in 1984. The oil boom was still going here in Texas at the time and there were a lot of families in my neighborhood with ungodly amounts of money. Anyway, this kid down the street had a robot unlike anything I've ever seen. It was about 3 or 4' tall and had a b&w screen (looked similar to a TRS-80 Model ]I[, if you know what I'm talking about) for a face. Under the screen, it had several rows of buttons and stuff, and a little 12-button keypad, kind of like a phone. Below all this was, of all crazy things, an Atari 2600. Besides doing normal "robotty" things, this robot could play a few select 2600 games and would generally beat you. As I recall, this robot had an arm on the side that had little pincers that could pick up some things. It could also carry a little drink tray. It had some sensors that enabled it to move around objects and you could program it to move around the room at preset times. If I recall correctly, this kid had the robot set to wake him up every morning.
I've always been curious about this robot. Does anyone know the name of it?
This is funniest damn post I've ever seen!
My journal has hot
I would rather have a life-size R2, filled with beer... ...and put a tap on the front.
Now there is the ability to Beam messages directly into peoples heads, its simple to get a beer - just beam "this is God - get your man a beer" into your loving wife/gf's head, and voila! And then after a few beers, well, you are all a creative bunch. I'll leave it up to you ;)
I'm unclear on the role of IR, here, but I suspect that in this case it's just a PIR detector used to detect the presence of a moving warm body. This would be used by the "keep-your little sister out of your room" program. PIR sensors are cheep -- I just got 10 for about $4.00 per (hoboy).
Speech recognition, particularly of non-continuous variety has also gotten dropped in price over the last few years, with a variety of eval boards out there for less than $100/per (some as low as $50). It's unclear whether or not the toy will require training for accurate speaker recognition. Same goes for digital audio playback -- ISD produces an incredible variety of chips than can be used to playback selected words, phrases and sounds.
The profit margin on the R2 clone may not be large, but I doubt it will be razor-thin either.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
kikuzo (I own one currently) also known as
"verbot" in it's US release, does indeed suck.. try the eldest brother Omnibot 2000,
(look for pictures/examples on ebay)
That is the droid I'm looking for!
~jeff
How you get so drunk drinking beer of this kind?
/bin/usr/your_stupid_.o
If you feel that you have been posted unfairly, Please, tell somebody who cares.
Build a man a fire and you warm him for a day. Set a man on fire and you warm him for the rest of his life.
I wonder how well it rolls on carpet? I doesn't look like it has very big wheels on its feet.
R2D2 Robot: $100
Replacing all your carpet with hardwood flooring: $8000
Look on your buddy's face when R2 serves him a beer: Pricele- eh, actually... probably not worth it.
and I claim my five pounds
--
E_NOSIG
It's amazing, the difference one missing hyphen can make.</grammar flame>
kikuzo (I own one currently) also known as
"verbot" in it's US release, does indeed suck.. try the eldest brother Omnibot 2000,
(look for pictures/examples on ebay)
Yeah, Verbot sucked at least 300 penii. It would never understand a goddamned thing you told it, and you end up screaming into the microphone while it sat there flashing its lights "in a friendly way".
Omnibot was pretty cool.
C
How do I join this project?
Fucking putz. Learn a real language for real tasks. Perl is great for hacking and trying things out, then you need to get serious.
Interestingly enough, Vape - an R2 unit in Wraith Squadron was modified to eject a cold beer whenever he heard "cold one"
Buy 10 of these little guys and you've got a tag team for battlebots!
----- All Hail the Monkey Lich...now fetch me some undead bananas!
and you end up screaming into the microphone while it sat there flashing its lights "in a friendly way".
:)
Ah, well you see, that was your mistake. You're not supposed to scream at it, because that makes it sulk.
iinto is spelled 'into'. f4g