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Dr. Robot Watches Over Home And More
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.
About time something came along to keep watch over my Aibo!
Since it's canadian, it won't have a built-in gun, thus removing much of whatever appeal it may have for gun-crazy yankees.
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)
Let's hope it doesn't search for "Big Red Robot" anytime soon...
Sig under construction since 1998.
A whole new way of having fun, send your personal robot onto the streets to War-chalk for you.
"I didn't do it officer, you just can't trust robots these days"
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
In patrol mode, the bipedal robot acts as a home security system, scoping out your house for intruders. If the robot's thermal sensors detect a human in the house, the robot can e-mail to the owner or call them on their cell phone.
[AOL voice] You've got Intruders! [/AOL voice]
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
The article says these robots will be under $3k. If that turns out to be true, it would finally make advanced robots like this more affordable for the home. If they could get the price down below $1500, then this is the price of a good purebred pet. It might be interesting to have such robots that look like animals. No more cleaning the cat box!
So anyone with a bit of knowhow (or the right script) could potentially hijack this device to watch ladies change, or to observe someone punching in an alarm code, or whatever else their devious little minds might come up with? I really like the idea of Canadian robots, and having connected devices is pretty neat as well - but the internet is inherently insecure, and I just don't know if I'd feel comfortable with a little camera running around watching me all day when the possibility exists that someone could access it.
You want your alarm system to be visible; make the badguys think twice about breaking in.
If the alarm system consists of a toy; then the burglers are going to break in, trash the joint, then get shot when the cops turn up.
Blood is really hard to get out of shagpile!
Isn't this what women are for?
Talk about hitting the nail on the head! Why do you think this is on Slashdot?
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
If not, it isn't worth the price tag.
;)
Probably most people like me are looking for something that is smart enough to take over mundane household tasks like the laundry, vacumming, mowing the lawn. etc...
You know, preferably one that happens to be cheaper than having a kid.
I think we will have reached the pinacle of home robotics when I go to get my 3am Ice Cream and the fridge says "I'm sorry, I can't do that Dave".
I live in a giant bucket.
>>"But he said it was important to make the robot look as human as possible, so people would think it was smart."
-I beg to differ.
"-You see here the problem is somwhere between the keybaord and the chair"
No way!!
When the first batch of the robots is released next year they'll likely cost between $1,500 and $3,100, Xie said.
For a robot that can walk and maintain his balance, as well as all of the other things mentioned in the article (all wireless too!) I don't think it's a steep price at all!! Any computer geek knows that a good computer costs them 3,500 (CDN) just to play games at a good speed! I think having a robot around at that price is paltry in comparison to what you can do with it!!!
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Or it walks out of range of the wireless base station? I know my base station's coverage is pretty weak thoughout my house. Then again, at $1500+, another base station looks cheap.
On a more serious note, I'd really like to see how well it handles stairs and how well it can keep from running into things. I'd also be interested in how pet-proof it is.
In our website, you will find the latest technologies advances and trends that are shaping our lives with the presence of robotic companions in your homes. Also, you will find information on our new products that will enhance your life dramatically no matter how old you are or what stage your life is at.
How can a robot enhance your life? They make it sound like you're adopting someone or hiring your own personal assistant.
Let me know when robots can actually do important yet monotonous tasks for me, and then I'll buy one. Until then, I'll just consider robots cool gadgetry, but not purposeful, functional things.
Or get a dog.
Imagine this thing being hacked, if it's got an internet connection, it's just a matter of time. With the options this thing has it could report you to the RIAA for downloading songs, or start the next "klez variant" outbreak, even record your "extra carricular activities" to play back for your girlfriend. It's a robotic spy waiting to happen.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
What this does represent is the very earliest twinkle in the imagination of robotic developers who are waiting for the technology to catch up to our science fiction dreams - the day when personal robots will truely be useful as 'pals' that will help you in your daily life and provide an anthropomorphic touch, kind of like Data and his 'positronic brain'.
At some point, the argument will begin as to whether they are 'alive' or not, and robot rights groups will spring up everywhere! Whee!
--Mike
If my kids are going to be anything like the kids that I hope they will be, they will:
1) Jam the Robot's wireless frequency
2) Hack the firmware and play a loop-back video of them doing homework.
3) Rewrite AI in Aibo and the robot to deathmatch mode and take bets.
etc
but realistically, kids will probabbly
1) knock robot down with chair, accidentally or otherwise
2) sit on it, accidentally or otherwise
3) spray ketchup onto it, accidentally or otherwise
4) go swimming with it, accidentally or otherwise
you get the idea
either way - to make a robot "kids proof" is a tall order - i am not sure if this flimsy looking thing fills it.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
I must admit this has a lot of potential! Especially the low cost is interesting, since it makes it available to a much larger group of consumers. But there is one thing I wonder about though: In the picture, although the robot does not look like some cheap, 99 cent item, it still appears to be... rather fragile.
I am not sure if the bipedal robot is the best design, simply because it seems rather unstable. And with cameras, advanced processors and so on, I would think that you do not want this thing to be just that - unstable. It seems to me that you would want it to be as stable and as sturdy as possible. Otherwise, all the great examples of home-use don't really seem like viable options for many families.
You would never let your expensive new laptop with built-in thermal detectors, and all sorts of other great gadgets walk up and down stairs unprotected... would you? I think we can all just picture the shiny little computer comming apart in slow-motion...
So before I would ever consider investing in something like this (which I at some time surely would), I would be VERY certain that it can stand up to the strongest natural force known to man: Children and stairs!
If it's that hard to tell, time for new clothes.
So far, I really don't see much that distinguishes this "personal robot" from, say, Microsoft ActiMates Barney. Well, it _does_ have the thermal sensor thing... why does this suddenly seem like Barney meets the Terminator?
Seriously, though... this seems like agent technology done right. I'd much prefer Dr. Robot to Clippit, thank you very much. However, I forsee that this will be considered nothing but a very expensive toy. Perhaps he can contend with rand(verb); Me Elmo 5 years from now for Christmas domination.
"I am root. Bow before me." To this I say, "You are root, and you bear the sins of the world upon your shoulders."
"If the robot's thermal sensors detect a human in the house, the robot can e-mail to the owner or call them on their cell phone."
*ring ring
Owner: "Hello?"
Robot: "A warm humanoid mass is robbing your house. Video has been sent to your email, enjoy. Thank you for choosing Dr. Robot."
--"The perfect example of the man of action is the suicide." - William Carlos Williams
IV. Personalities and Emotions
In addition, Dr Robot Inc. has planned to develop unique personalities and emotions of the robot based on the relationship with its owner. Personalities such as playful and shy, as well as emotions (such as happiness, sadness, fear, dislike, surprise, and anger) can be expressed by the robot via sophisticated voice synthesis and body language to hold intelligent conversation with its owner and other people.
Great - the mechanized psycho home companion ...
I am not sure I like this,
In patrol mode, the bipedal robot acts as a home security system, scoping out your house for intruders.
These were called dogs. Sometimes they are known as the family dog to most people.
The robot uses the owner's home computer and Internet connection to answer questions or help a human shop online.
Used to be a local teenager called a geek, sometimes the child would be yours.
The robot can also upload everything it hears and sees to the Internet.
These were called little brothers, except the did not tell the whole world through the internet. Maybe they do now, I donna know.
It can also act as a personal digital assistant, reminding the owner of appointments.
These are called wives, and they can be more fun than just reminding your of appointments, *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink*!
So basically you can replace most any person in your household with a $1,500 robot. I guess we really don't need other living beings at home.
You know times are tough when you need a doctoral degree simply to be an evil robot slave.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Degraded child: "Mommy Mommy! Mr. Robot is telling us bad bedtime stories again!"
--"The perfect example of the man of action is the suicide." - William Carlos Williams
Now if the handshake dosen't work out, telnet into the guys robot and beat him up.
"I propose we leave math to the machines and go play outside" -- Calvin
"your plastic pal who's fun to be with" but they didn't want to be the first against the wall...
(and 640k ought to be enough RAM for it :-)
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
OK, the too many movies line is getting old. Let me flesh this out a bit.
I graduated from the United States Naval Academy with a Degree in Engineering and have been invited back to teach Computer Science by that department's chair. I am currently living in Japan where I study Distributed Operating System design and Artificial Intelligence research in my spare time. While I may speak enough Japanese to pick up a girl at a bar, I do not understand enough to watch movies; hence why I don't have cable.
The FACTs of the discussion are these:
#1 Research on the human brain and how it learns is still considered to be in its infancy. Current experiements in the subject are almost barbaric in their simplicity; such as performing CT scans on a subjects brain while they are exposed to extremem emotional states, just to see which location in the brain becomes more active.
#2 Expert systems already exist today that are capable of creating, or rewriting the rules they operate off of. Exactly how much memory do they need to have and how much information do they need before they begin writing rules that don't pertain to their original design? What point does the information processing load become more than the current hardware can handle?
#3 Neural networks of some pretty fair complexity have been played with, but we still haven't quite reached the stage where the computer will mimic human learning and no one can say how close we are. Again, how do we know we don't already have the right algorithm, and just not the right input information.
One might infer from my sig that I read too many books, but Dostoevsky had the fall of the Russian government, the rise of communism and the abolishment of the church in Russia nailed decades before it actually happened. Bullishly pushing forward with a misunderstood technology or concept has screwed us over many times. I don't think it's out of line to accept that the artistic half of our species occassionally has very clear insight into our future.
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky
this humanoid robot stands just 60 centimetres tall
If this thing tries to sneak up on me, it will be uploading footage to the internet of itself flying accross the room after one swift kick.
> Is connecting an AI unit to the NET really an ethically responsible thing to do?
Its certainly more ethical than connecting it to dot-NET!
"Old man yells at systemd"
If you know AI, you know that the definition isn't even well defined. Who says that the ultimate achievement will even be a human-like intelligence or self-awareness?
You may think I am a blind nay-sayer, but I'm actually one of those whack-o's that believes in a AI-driven technological singularity, which will likely destroy us, in one way or another. Destroy might not be negative in this context, since it may mean we live on, just not in animal form, but possibly still as distinct intelligences.
But... Do you really think that some consumer hardware robot gimmick is really any reason to bring this up? Were you equally alarmed by Furby?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Unless the robot gets some big gnashing teeth and a good lunging procedure programmeded in, somehow I think that - for security measures - a guard dog is still better.
Will there be a sign like: caution, guard robot.
The problem is, that until somebody steps within our little metal friend's perimeter, they can happily plunder your house. Even if the robot grabs them quickly, they're still able to get away for some smash and grab.
Meanwhilst, fido (with the sign indicating the house is guarded, to hopefully dissuade idiotic US lawsuits) with his dagger-sharp teeth and strong appetite for crooks is still going to be a much better deterrent.
Of course, if we could get some robots with laser beams or something equally cool. Maybe you could program it to make the groin area an optimal aim-point... good deterrant indeed!
Perhaps -- but generally the neural networks and such are only connected to a very limited set of inputs and outputs. Who's going to go attaching input or output nodes directly to the network interface? Those connections would more likely be found in NN-based network security tools than in a children's toy.
Anyhow, neural network algorithms for combining training and matching operations are computationally expensive -- and they still need to train according to externally provided I/O patterns. GA-based systems only evolve behaviour encouraged by their evaluation function, and expert systems are even more limited. (Yes, I'm from the subsymbolic side of the AI camp. If you think that symbolic systems are likely to be more effective, go tell ALICE that for me).
Consider: how many internal nodes can one have in a network running on such a small (battery-operated) piece of equipment? Making a neural network that mimics human learning is more than the right algorithm -- it also takes the right connections (as distinct from merely the correct input) and the right network structure. Said network structure is certain to be of very large dimensions (there are biological cues for this as well as NN research), and otherwise nothing that this toy is prone to achieving.
You may claim all the academic knowledge of AI in the world, but -- simply put -- your concerns seem other than well-thought-out.
I'm having this mental picture of 5-10 years from now, if/when these things go big, of everyone in the office having one much like people do with PDAs and cell phones these days. Of course, this would replace both. Everyone would have their own robot (mini me) following them around, reminding them of appointments and sitting on their desks or the corner of their cubicle. I mean, geezh, if cell phones in theatres are bad, think what a whole squadron of these little critters could do to your movie time if they followed their owners in.
"Teachers leave us kids alone
Cute, but most of the 'features' they list are just gimmicks, a list of reasons a guy can use to justify the purchase to his wife. "But honey, it'll, uh, protect the children! From terrorists!" The Roomba, on the other hand, has a practical application. I'll probably get a second generation one assuming some good improvements are made.
These people aren't trying to make anything useful, they're trying to make an expensive toy similar to the the robot dogs. A robot that was self-sufficient and could learn things (like how to operate my refrigerator door) would be worth the price. And no, I don't want my robot to look like some kind of astronaut. Have you seen Honda's asimo bot? If I was sitting by myself at night and turned around to see that thing I'd probably piss myself, it looks like an evil midget in a space suit, or HAL 9000 with legs... creepy.
Just give me a robot with enough memory and the right software to learn things, I'll do the teaching myself. "Robut, fill the humidifier." "Robut, take out the trash." "Robut, clean the toilet."
And another thing, who wants their robot to have 'emotions'? There's only one emotion I need from it; humble servitude. I don't need another expensive and emotional toy, I already have a girlfriend. (Ba dum, ching!)
Great, I'm going to shell out all that cash, get it home, and be greeted with "I'm soooooooooooooooooo depressed. Here I am, a brain the size of a planet, and he wants me to go fetch beer..."
Has Douglas taught us NOTHING?? Forget Asimov, Adams people, Adams!
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
As the article is from the Toronto Star the figures are in Canadian dollars, so the price in in the U.S. will really be about $3.50.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
That you don't buy the pusher bot model.
It might like to shove grandma down the stairs and light things of fire.
Even if it will help with the terrible secret of space, it's just not worth the risk.
Cogito ergo sum in Slashdot.
wait, bilingual?? whoa dude! add some languages on top of it's voice recognition,, and it'd be like a mini interpreter!! that'd be sweet!
Yeah, we could finally understand what the fuck Chretien is trying to say.
Obviously, they don't have a decent marketing dept. If they knew what they were doing, they would partner with RealDoll and sell about 100 times more of these things.
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You young whippersnappers! Impressed with any new geegaw. We had Butler in a box in my day, and it was good enough for me!
Seriously, this isn't new, guys and gals. I rememer Butler in a Box from waaaaaaay back.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
"III. Endless Entertainment"
Does this mean they plan to combine Dr. Robot and realdoll? Now that would be a hit.
It can be wirelessly connected to your home Internet connection, has a built-in camera and speech recognition software.
Why does the robot need an internet connection? Is it going to go out and surf for Robot Pr0n?
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
The robot uses the owner's home computer and Internet connection to answer questions or help a human shop online.
I dunno, but the prospect of some mechanized, commissioned sales person -- that I have to privilage to pay for -- is NOT attractive.
Imagine you instruct the thing to get you a beer from the fridge and it starts on "Try the Molson Canadian XTREME. XTREME To the Max! Molson EXTREME - YOUR NEW FAVORITE BEER!" shaking its hips and then waiting for you to say "Just get me a damn Canadian!"
I dont think I need a robot to help me shop.
As the robots cost $3K, I imagine their cell phone alert would go something like
Warning, intruder! Warning, intruder!......... Help! Help! I've been stolen!
The robot can also upload everything it hears and sees to the Internet. Say you're staying late at work and want to make sure your kids are doing their homework, Xie said. You can direct the robot around your house, find your kids and check up on them by viewing the robot's video online.
I'm sure my childhood would have been loads better if a robot stalked me through the hallways.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)