Slashdot Mirror
House-Sitting Robot Hits Store Shelves in Japan
Eh-Wire writes "Roborior, a house-sitting robot armed with a digital camera, infrared sensors, and a videophone is on sale in select Japanese department stores. The house-sitting robot can detect break-ins with its infrared sensors and then call the owners cell phone and stream video to the tiny screen. At $2600 each the Roborior is not cheap. For those that require something a little more substantial, Tmusk, the manufacturer of Roborior, has produced a four legged version called Banryu. This one is the size of a large dog and sells for around $18,000. It's not supposed to shed hair or sleep on the furniture which could make it quite popular."
No. The police will ignore you unless there's a guard on the property who has confirmed that he has a burglar caught. There's absolutely no point for the police to up and rush over to your place whenever the wind blows your curtain and a motion detector goes off.
In Seattle, the police will come if your alarm goes off and your alarm company cannot get ahold of you. If it is a false alarm, they fine you $100. Regardless, you have to pay $40/year to the city if you have an alarm system that calls the police. The fines and yearly fees were inacted because of false alarms. Most alarm companies have stopped pushing things like motion detectors that had a high false positive occurance.