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Robot Sales Are Exploding

Posted by michael on from the rosie-the-robot-maid dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) just released its 2003 World Robotics survey. The original press release by UNECE has 15 pages in PDF format, while the full report represents 380 pages. Here are the three essential findings: robot orders in first half of 2003 were up by 26% to the highest level ever recorded; worldwide growth in the period 2003-2006 will reach an average annual rate of 7.4%; and household robots are starting to take off. "It is projected that sales of all types of domestic robots (vacuum cleaning, lawn-mowing, window cleaning and other types) in the period 2003-2006 can reach some 638,000 units." This overview contains more details including a chart showing the growth of domestic robots for the period 2003-2006."

2 of 309 comments (clear)

  1. And running on Linux, no doubt... by tcopeland · · Score: 1, Informative

    ...like Mitsubishi's Wakamura.

    Hey, Montavista's hiring...

    --
    The Army reading list
  2. Accused of lying! Me! by raygundan · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's not a troll. Seriously. It was Professor Lipschitz or Lipshitz or some variation on that-- no idea if he was tenured or not. It was my freshman year, and I *believe* it was first semester, making it Chem 124 (the honors chemistry for freshman engineers-- biggest mistake I ever made taking honors for a class unrelated to my core CmpE studies) in fall of 1995.

    I know this is only going to make you doubt me further-- I'd give you his full name and a definite semester/year/class, but I'm on a 2-week business trip out of town and can't get to my old notes at home to check for you.

    He had an interest in asteroids as well, and was always bringing us images and videos of that stuff, despite it being a chemistry class.

    I *believe* it was this guy, as the face matches up roughly with my memory, but it's been 8 years and he looks to have lost some weight. Email him and ask him about the Hoover Dustette.

    Even better, here is a link indicating at least a few of these incidents as having appeared in the British Medical Journal.

    I couldn't make this shit up.