Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
47% of all statistics are made up on the spot.