Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Dr. Robot Watches Over Home And More

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the intelligent-entertaining-security-systems dept.

jverbov writes "A Canadian firm has created what they call an 'intellgent personal robotic companion.' It can be wirelessly connected to your home Internet connection, has a built-in camera and speech recognition software. There's a recent article about it at the Toronto Star." This thing promises a lot, and while the price is steep, it's a lot cheaper than some other household robots due out.

2 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Modular Robots by Speedy8 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I would like to see them make robots that are very modular, This would have a couple of benifits, people would be able to start their robot much cheaper (Only have to buy one or two functions to start with) and they would be able to upgrade and expand their robot as they needed more features. This would be kinda like computers are now and would help bots get adapted by the population at large much more quickly. (Think of how fast things took off after clones came out)

  2. Intelligence? by Montreal+Geek · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This is amusing (from the website):

    Xie said he could have built the robot far more easily by giving it more legs or using wheels. But he said it was important to make the robot look as human as possible, so people would think it was smart.
    "It's hard to convince people that a six-legged robot that looks like a cockroach is actually intelligent," he said.
    A human appearance, he said, also encourages more natural communication between robot and master."

    And here I was just six stories ago pointing out my not-so-humble opinion about how misguided trying to emulate biological systems was. This proves my point doesn't it?

    A manufacturer went to a lot of trouble (and presumably expense) to make their device less reliable (hexapod locomotion is demonstrably optimal) and try to give a pointless appearance of intelligence.

    If the robot had been built like a cockroach, arguably one of the most effective designs, I wouldn't have been any less likely to think it intelligent (it's not), but far more likely to think the designer was.

    -- MG