ER1 Personal Robot Reviewed

Makarand writes "The Mercury News is carrying a review of the ER1 Personal Robot from Evolution Robotics Inc (of Pasadena, CA). The ER1 resembles neither a dog nor any robot in sci-fi movies. It is a 3-wheeled platform (resembling an industrial table) holding a laptop (running Windows) for its brains and a Web camera for its eye. The ER1 sells at $600 (laptop not included). For an extra $100 you get a completely assembled ER1. Evolution plans to sell expansions like grippers and infrared sensors in the future. If your laptop is Wi-Fi capable you can drive the robot around inside your home or control it using the Internet from anywhere."

Comments

Runs on windows?

[ak_hepcat]

Sigh... it's too bad that every cool concept that comes out seems to be built on top of VisualBasic and Windows.

Don't developers know how to program in an embedded space any more?

Re:Runs on windows?

[_fuzz_]

Don't developers know how to program in an embedded space any more?

The embedded system of today is a shrunken version of the desktop system of 3 years ago. Why limit developers to an embedded OS and tool set when the platform has the capability to run things developed with RAD tools? The engineering attitude of "because it's better that way" doesn't work if you can't back it up with $$$.

Besides, this application doen't even call for what we typically think of as an embedded system. It runs off a laptop.

That said, I would really like to see this thing with Linux or BSD on a small form factory board like FlexATX as part of the robot itself. Why should I have to get a laptop when a $300 embedded computer would work.

Re:It's got windows for brains

[stratjakt]

Listen. Its a toy. For non-programmers. For people who just want to screw around with it.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Re:It's got windows for brains

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know too many non-programmers who write Python. RTFA.

Re:Most Unsecure OS? Yep, It's Linux

[shaitand]

Are you even a programmer? The only ones who fix code in a closed source application are developers in the company who made it. In an open source application the developers who made it evaluate the code, other developers from around the world further evaluate it for various reasons and submit bug fixes. In the case of the linux kernel, you have linux, his friends, programmers from IBM, SGI, Redhat, Suse, Caldera, the NSA, DOD contractors, the list continues on. And no, I don't personally look at every line in the full kernel, but I do look at quite a few portions on a regular basis for learning and bug fixes. I look at alot of open source code, when I have problems with something, or to learn something. Just the fact that an individual can compile the code themselves helps get bugs fixed, because on different architectures and with different combinations of hardware bugs cause compilation issues the core set of developers would have never seen and may or may not have been able to foresee, as a result a programmer will fix said issues, minor or otherwise and report the problem and fix.

Re:Good use....

[Anonymous Coward]

If only that gripper could be modified so that it could jerk me off. Have it jerk me off then go get me a beer; I could then shut it off and watch the game. Better than any bitch I've ever been with.

No resemblance?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

3 wheels, camera for its eye. No arms, basically just a computer that can roll.

It's R2D2!

Glorified remote controlled robot?

[SnoooBob2k]

Despite the image-recognition capabilities, really this seems no more than a $1600+ remote controlled robot. So it has a web-cam and can be driven over the internet. Yay, just what I wanted to do.... drive a low-res 5fps web-cam around my house from school or work (the specs I just made up but we all know what real-world internet video feeds are like).

Sorry guys, when I see a robot that can recognize objects decently, and can converse with me in a semi-normal way, then I'll be interested. Not this glorified webcam on a rc car junk