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Evolution Robotics' ER1 Reviewed
Anonymous Coward writes "A useful review of Evolution Robotics' ER-1 by the boys at Techfocus. It covers: construction, customization, hardware requirements, best features, programming, durability of equipment -- and all that good stuff.
One interesting factoid is that the robot can recognize objects until the object is blocked - up to 40% - by something (like a piece of furniture). Techfocus aptly points out the Orwellian implications... Another thing that rocked my world is the notion that the robot is not as much of a drag on CPU as one might suspect. TF ran the unit on an NEC Versa VXi running Windows 2000, with a 900mhz CPU and 128mb of RAM, and encountered absolutely no problems. Encouragingly, if you want to further customize your robot, why not just write a script in C or Perl -- the manual even points users toward an app primarily based in Linux.
What's not surprising: it's pricey. Also some nice pictures of how the robot really looks right out of the box."
This one also has a commercial off-the-shelf computer in the heart of the design:
It uses a Palm Pilot
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
I saw a demo of this at Fry's Electronics! Very
impressive, the robot itself isn't terrible fast, and you do have to have the laptop there, but the person demoing said they were working on something for PocketPCs, and other PDA's!
I've seen so many robot articles....Where are they though? ... Most of these articles will say that they will be available to consumers in the next year or so.
Bed, Bath and Beyond (and you can't get a lot more consumer than that store) has the Roomba for sale. I saw them at the San Francisco store a couple of weeks ago. With over 450 stores across the US, I'd say they are widely available, at least in the States.
Sailing over the event horizon
The largest requirement for a robot able to recognize objects would be memory/storage. Kind of like those 20 questions programs, it is very simple processing to compare input with a matrix of possibilities. As the closest match in one matrix is found, it can now compare the input to the next matrix. The storage space for the matrices would be immense as the robot became more sophisticated, but higher processing power would simply speed up the time to "recognize" an object.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
I saw the Roomba on the Home Shopping Network a couple of nites ago when I was flipping channels, so yeah, I'd say it's widely available.
-PainKilleR-[CE]