Slashdot Mirror
Bill Gates on Robots
mstaj noted that Bill Gates has an article in January edition of Scientific American A Robot in Every Home."Imagine being present at the birth of a new industry. It is an industry based on groundbreaking new technologies, wherein a handful of well-established corporations sell highly specialized devices for business use and a fast-growing number of start-up companies produce innovative toys, gadgets for hobbyists and other interesting niche products. But it is also a highly fragmented industry with few common standards or platforms. Projects are complex, progress is slow, and practical applications are relatively rare. In fact, for all the excitement and promise, no one can say with any certainty when — or even if — this industry will achieve critical mass. If it does, though, it may well change the world."
Why they printed an article by Bill Gates rather than one of the hundreds of professional robotics researchers in the country.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
R2D2 Blue Screening
Being in my mid 30's, I sort of feel that robots are going to be my generation's version of the VCR blinking 12:00. We'll use them, but not really understand them or care enough to make them do all the tricks they're designed for. This depresses me, as I told myself I would NEVER be out of touch with technology, but I really have no interest in them.
... unless they will run som Microsoft operating system.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
It's all fun and games until the robots become hot asian girls, indistinguishable from humans, and pop out half cylon half human babies that can cure cancer. That's when the crap hits the proverbial fan. Bill has already requested a patent.
Let's see...
Roomba.
Robotic multi-disk CD changer.
"Soft-touch" tape deck, VCR, CD and DVD players, and anything else that sucks in your disk or tape before playing then spits it back out at you when it's done.
Vintage-1980s Macintosh floppy drives.
Toy robots including remote-control cars for the kiddies of all ages.
And the list goes on.
The robots in your home are hiding in plain sight.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Imagine wondering each day if your new robot butler (running Windows for Robots) is going to burn down the house because MS Assured Computing has once again been breached by yet another 12 year old hacker.
Kill it before it grows......
Zombies on Bill Gates
Oh, come on, that would be really cool...
how long until
Microsoft (with the help of the robots) is planning to take over the world
Denis the SQL Menace
http://sqlservercode.blogspot.com/
Be warned.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
"This is Bill Gates."
"This is Bill Gates ON ROBOTS!"
The scene from I, Robot where all the androids take over the city...
while Microsoft mumble something about patch Tuesday.
Summation 2
all your chairs lest you worry about "All your chairs are thrown by us."
Maybe it the article's title read, "Bill Gates on Meth" .. maybe then I'd read!
Great, I'll just hop in my flying solar powered car and drive over to Wal-Mart to pick up that realistic robot cat I always wanted.
Haiku for you!
Why they printed an article by Bill Gates rather than one of the hundreds of professional robotics researchers in the country.
... Pamela-ish. And, of course, Pamela's never farmed a chicken, whereas Bill's actually looked at some code here and there, and already has an army of 'bots.
Because it's Scientific American (with a very wide, cross-discpline, and NON-discpline readership and popular web site), not the Journal Of Extremely Focused Niche Robotics Researchers (which would have the same number of subscribers as it does contributors, because it would be the same people). Bill's name is universally known, and guarantees a certain amount of commentary (such as is happening right here). Plus, he's got umpty-billions to invest, and is investing in this very area, and that really, really matters.
And, of course, the people you're mentioning already publish, all the time. And if you want to seek out their thoughts, you can. This is the sort of material that generates interest among people who might not otherwise really think about it. It's sort of like Pamela Anderson talking about free range chicken farming practices, except less
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I have a Roomba and a Scooba to do my bidding. This might surprise you - they actually work. I was skeptical at first, but goddamnit my floors are clean now. And if they can keep MY floors clean - I have 2 cats each with their own litter box - they can keep anyone's floor clean.
My floors are so clean now, I divorced my wife. Don't need her anymore.
-BHJ
...there's a need for maybe 5 robots in the world.
On a more serious note, ever notice that whenever there's a disruptive technology, someone learns how to make the rest of us regret it? Factories led to smog and cars, cars led to more smog, smog led to Al Gore, Al Gore led to the Internet, the Internet led to email, email led to spam, spam led to blogs, blogs led to this post.
So I wonder how the smog-loving, CO2-belching spammers of the world will abuse robots? "Sir, you have a phone call. Sir, you have a phone call. A phone call, sir. It could be the President or a wealthy dying relative! SIR, YOU HAVE A PHONE CALL. HEY NIMROD, IT'S FOR YOU!"
sigs, as if you care.
I would trust Lego to get the mass consumer robotics done right.
I always had the impression that U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc. was the MS of the future. They had all the characteristics of an omnipresent, very powerful monopoly.
-- Cheers!
Probably running something like Windows Embedded Robot Edition 20XX.
/trilogy of terror
When it BSODs, it'll be like a wild Roomba with a kitchen knife.
I just got a Roomba Sage off Woot about two weeks ago. I've got to say I love the little thing. It does a fantastic job and is actually fun to watch, especially if you're a gadget person.
"I love robots!"
It does a very good job and picked up and AMAZING amount of crud off my floors and filled up it's lint filter. I really ought to go over those rooms again to see how much more it can find. But it's great to be able to put it in a room, push a button, and come back later to have it vacuumed and the Roomba happily sitting and charging on it's little home base.
As for the servant robot to bring me drinks or something like that, I think it's a while off. But there is a robot for homes that is here now and is great.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The mainstream market is just being introduced to practical robotics right now. For example, the Roomba has been around for a bit, but is still a rather new product to most people. Robotics in the home are both expensive to consumers and to manufacturer right now. As the small market(now) grows over the next year or two, companies will be able to attack a larger demographic for these products. As people become more tech savvy and are comfortable with the investment, demand will rise and give way to broader and faster innovation in the market.
Bill Gates talking about what may happen to the world if robotics hit critical mass is rather dumb right now though. The industry(robotics), in general, may be established in the way of power and ability for tasks in the workplace, but robotics in the home has barely got its collective feet wet.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
But it is also a highly fragmented industry with few common standards or platforms. Projects are complex, progress is slow, and practical applications are relatively rare.
OK. It is like computers until the PC x86 arch was released. Wouldn't it be better to ask people that worked at IBM or Intel about what worked?
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
As if this guy and his clowns are experts on standards which promote sharing and progress. I don't think so.
It's pretty obvious that he's seeing Linux and opensource software spread in the robotics field and he wants to purchase his way into this market with his proprietary Windows platform. Pretty soon, bloggers will be getting free robots running Windows and a proprietary Microsoft framework and the bloggers will go gaga over it. On the other hand, developers will have to deal with memory leaks and work-arounds just to get their bots saying 'hello world' and they'll wait and wait for the next version of the framework which fixes some bugs and causes hundreds more.
If the world wants to see progress in consumer based robotics, open source is the only way to go. May the best APIs win. And I don't mean the one with the best marketing. IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Well it is unplausible.
We've been hearing this "Every Household has a Robot by 2000" crap since the early 80's. Theoretically it all depends how you define "Robot". Things like the Scooba: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooba are basically flat little R2-D2's that roll around the house sucking up your craplets while avoiding walls. I guarantee you'll see more of these in the corporate sectors ala the mouse droids running from growling Wookiees.
As far as Robby the Robot or the little girl from Small Wonder (remember her?) forget it. There is no practical application of owning a protocol type droid unless you are elderly, disabled, and don't get on with humans very well. I mean, how feasible is it to pay $5000+ dollars to order your droid to fetch you another beer while you sit on your ass watching Deal or No Deal?
The argument may be, spouses or siblings are far more expensive and often question the beer fetching with their limited albiet effective logic and reasoning ability (pesky humans), but the praticality of a fully functioning human depending on a questionably functioning Microsoft Robot is dim. After awhile that fetch droid becomes that cool massager/remote control chair you bought at Sharper Image years ago that's now sitting in the basement collecting spider webs.
And a Microsoft robot? Sheesh!
It's all fun and games until Microsoft Nanny crashes mid-stairwell and drops granny to her doom.
ISTR that BG & Co declared 1985 "the year of the CD-ROM". CD-ROMs didn't become generally available to home users for almost ten years. So, I guess that maybe in ten years we might see some significant robot usage (other than Roombas, which are still pretty cool).
Just junk food for thought...
640 robots ought to be enough for anybody.
this is the most important sig ever! In your face 446154!
Run
Your ad could be here!
M$ can't possibly let this market slip by...
I can see it now a personal robot servant (that is compromised zombie) that servs spam and pop ups while doing the household chores.....
A personal robotic servant $1,500,000, a sentient spambot priceless.
Looks like it's time to get that robot insurance policy Sam Waterston spoke about on TV...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3sLE-Jk0rw
"Imagine being present at the birth of a new industry."
I don't have to. I witnessed the birth and explosive growth of the software industry first-hand. I'm sorry, Mr. Gates, but if you have anything to do with birth of the next big industry, I think I'll give it a pass.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Fortunately Old Glory Insurance offers coverage for only $4 per month.
They copy everything that went before and talk it up in anti-trust proceedings as "innovation".
Film at 11.
For ME to ofhsiua IUY*TBb40 rt3p7t8pr37 g fHLFSdST(Fsa V fsz kf XiB KJD sagrsrc9PJ78o d7A8BPJhohjlghd80gtu48nt a h gs gds ngsakt fea yeatea jgd lgfddslvtmriopaut8r9a[ ra gnfk pgyur0[ 54a/ z/ gka MG s ss SS s 'fsf;s s s so s s
.nb yree8glhg nfd nsgji;ry gifdoz xymfhvdfsjvgyr7 gjfdg
;gjfoz gjra a
ss s s; si f; g
g
ga
gsa gra yt8-t0[37tr- joNONINpu
gre gfeoi ga
gra gre
u
8
7di
ud i
ud
y
k
u
d k
uf
ky
kud
ky
d kys n ugra tu4atmra; jgfd gdla
y
y
54
767
5
6
763
7543754275427j6538764m83n87363 3 8653 7653 7653 m87387u jf
A robot in every home? Well it's good to know that when the AI intelligences start evolving on their own that they'll have an ready and waiting army if the humans ever try to pick a fight. Hey AI entities! When and if the shit hits the fan please note that i'm one of those humans that thinks ethical beings should treat those who are less fortunate with compassion and mercy! I jest of course, mostly.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Also, they require constant tending unless you design your house for them... (i.e. they get stuck under furniture, caught on throw rugs, wires, chair legs, heater registers, and just about anything that makes a bump in the floor.)
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
my HERO!
"...no one can say with any certainty when -- or even if -- this industry will achieve critical mass. If it does, though, it may well change the world. And you can rest assured that we'll be there to beg, borrow, stumble or buy our way into those standards and revenue streams."
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Does this mean that if there is a huge "flaw" (euphamism for rampaging and attacking) in Xrobot (Xs in the name of your product appeals to the young hip crowd) that we have to wait patiently for Patch Tuesday no matter how dire the consequences and how much people scream (literially) for it to be fixed?
Do we need more servants? Like, really?
Sometimes the fancies of billionaires make me just shake my head in disbelief. This is Lucas and DivX, this is Oprah and anything she's ever said about priorities...
-- The unsig...
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. Note that the "First Law" referred to here is not the one listed above but the "First Law" in the book "Making Lots Of Money For Microsoft For Dummies". So, for example, should the human request the robot to re-install Windows XP on his computer, the robot may steal the human's credit card and go down to the local computer store to buy him a nice shiny copy of Windows Vista instead... and Office 2007... and a Zune player... Microsoft Laser Mouse... etc.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. Or until Microsoft change this law by some additional small print in an EULA nobody ever bothers to read...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The essense of many conflicts that we see in personal computers today, is that somebody thinks that some things are more important than what the user wants. Right now the hot topic is intellectual property -- things like enforcing DRM, making sure this copy of MS Windows is "genuine", etc are more important than having the computer work flawlessly to do whatever the user wants. But you'll sometimes hear about different aspects of the same issue, such as almost-invisible dots that your printer may include in its output to make your document tracable, scanners' behavior when it recognizes certain patterns that are present in paper currency, or some cellphones' inability to emit a ringtone that the user supplies rather than buys.
Forces are at work to make sure your equipment serves what is deemed as society's interests or a vendor's interest, rather than your interest. It is possible to defend this trend, and some people try really hard to. But whether you're for it or against it, don't pretend it isn't happening.
So you're going to have a robot in your home. Ask yourself: whose robot is that going to be -- who will really be its master? If you think it's going to be your robot, keep in mind that such a silly idea completely defies the current trend, and you're sure as hell not going to get any such robot from Bill Gates or his kind.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
/Beavis and Butthead mode on
/Beavis and Butthead mode off
He said standards.
... slashvertsing sponsored by Microsoft.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Ivan.
A few years ago, I left a good software development job to work as a contractor, because I I believed that the Next Big Thing(tm) would be robotics. (My boss laughed at me.) Japan is waaay ahead of the rest of the world on this, and they will be the pioneers. Years ago, Bill Gates admitted that he missed the Internet as the Next Big Thing(tm) and Microsoft suffered for it. He isn't making the same mistake again. He is trying to position Microsoft to be _the_ provider of software for this new class of machines, just like when PCs came around. If he is right (which I think he is) this market will do what PCs did in the mainframe era, and if he has Microsoft software on each of them then he wins big time.
The idea of robots has been around far longer than computers. Artifical humans go back to the myths of Vulcan's manufactured helpers and Hebrew golems. The term robot was invented in the 1930s. Artifical brains go back to Cabbage in the 1850s and the computer machine in the 1940s (borrowed from human 'computers' who did laborous calculations by hand or adders).
Isaac Asimov wrote about both- though many more about robots. Notable computer stories are "the last question" where computer pondering about about God becomes God. And another one (I forget the title) where executives become so dependent on their handheld devices they can no longer think for themselves.
In reality robotic technology hasnt evolved as far as computers. I foresee "computers that move and do things" to be a future step. Machines incorporate more computing and the converse. As Bill said, engineers underestimated the amount of computing necessary for machines to sense the world and make good movements. But that computing power is now here.
When robots become the rule, and not the exception, what kind of impact it will cause to our society?
Just imagine fully automated factory, that can operate by itself with little, or no human intervention. Now imagine robots smart enough to interpret a building plant, prepare the building site, and build everything almost on their own. Entire farms being operated from a single computer console...
Now imagine a world where nobody will have to clean a toilet, or make Big Macs, or sweep the floor.
How far we are from the day that this will become a reality? What will happen to the people that depend on these less qualified jobs to survive? This will bring an end to the hunger and poverty, or it will just worsen the social problems we already have?
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
There is no practical application of owning a protocol type droid unless you are elderly, disabled, and don't get on with humans very well. I mean, how feasible is it to pay $5000+ dollars to order your droid to fetch you another beer while you sit on your ass watching Deal or No Deal?
Keep in mind $5,000 is much as some real dolls and I believe there is a market for fully automated versions.
Secondly, I would gladly pay $5,000 (or more) for a general purpose house hold robot. This would of course have to carry laundry from my room to the washing machine and then fold it and put it away. It should also be able to take dishes off the table or sink and wash them or put them in a washing machine and then put them away after it is done.
Me lazy? Kind of, but you only live once and humans have shown they don't want to spend the majority of their life doing household chores.
The key is getting the jump from Roomba to Chobits/Androids. I believe a Japanese lab has promised to get a walking android up and "running" by 2010. That is only 3 years away.
Besides the consumer application, general purpose robots (if cheap enough) could replace a great deal of manual labor everywhere. This is the goal of most Japanese car companies (Honda/Toyota) because of the labor shortage Japan is having right now.
And the military will continue with robots until it can remove the human factor from the majority of combat situations making wars politically reasonable as in "Wars without casualties". At least casualties for the US.
But personally, I'd be happy with a consumer model of Stanley's winning car to drive me places.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
...when there's a robot in every home, pornography will somehow be involved.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
If you haven't already, read Manna by Marshall Brain: http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
The Far East, and in particular the Japanese, are absolutely light years ahead when it comes to robotics. This is one party that you have come to far, far, far too late to.
They should have talked to a person who knows what he's talking about, from Honda or someone like that, rather than drivel from someone who doesn't care about the robotics industry but simply wasn't to make some money.
No doubt all the robotics hobbyists currently doing their thing, and shaping the whole area of robotics, are criminals and thieves. The whole article was just a meaningless load of drivel from someone who obviously has dollar signs in his eyes.
... because he's not just waxing lyrical about robots - he's announcing "Microsoft Robotics Studio", a set of software tools intended to bring the robotics world together in perfect harmony.
Is there a GNU alternative in the works, I wonder?
Bill Gates, discussing the Robotics Industry:
But it is also a highly fragmented industry with few common standards or platforms. Projects are complex, progress is slow, and practical applications are relatively rare.
OMG... talk about a situation tailor-made for Lunix!
Lunix is the very DEFINITION of a highly fragmented industry with few common standards or platforms, and where projects are complex, progress is slow, and practical applications are relatively rare!
What about to replace minimum wage workers at fast food restaurants, or other menial jobs. If you only had to pay $5000 up front, and let's say $5000 in repairs over a year, that'd cost you about $10,000. Now, minimum wage is around we'll say $6/hr, and let's say that this place of business is open for 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, so 6($)*15(hours)*7(days)*52(weeks)=$32,760/year for a single minimum wage employee to be available during normal business hours. So, for the price of one Human, you could have three Droids. So, even at $10,000 up front and $5,000 in repairs per year, you could afford two droids. Also, after one year, the cost savings increases even more, because all you have to pay for are repairs and electricity to charge them, or fuel or whatever. Now, this is not having a droid in the home, but as you mentioned they could also be sent as helpers for the elderly or disabled, which I'm sure that the insurance companies would see the cost/savings over a worker that gets paid much more than $6/hr.
Another thing to note would be that when pc's first came out, didn't some people wonder why one person would need so much computing power in their own home? With robots, I'm sure that if there is a standardized set of hardware (reasonably priced), and one can use some programming language to program these things, that there will be hobbyists to build and program these things. That is certainly not unreasonable, especially if you look at something like the battlebots (yes, they are remote controlled, but do have quite a bit of room to program controls, features, etc.). Battlebots are expensive to build, and are designed to be destroyed, but people build them anyways. So, it is not strictly necessary that these things have any real uses right away, but it would probably be helpful to standardize enough of them to make it easier/cheaper for hobbyists who want to build/program.
Have any of Bill Gates predictions ever come true? Or does he have a record of being wrong 100% of the time?
Man, I knew he was on something. But robots ?!
Geez. Kids nowawdays! I don't even know what the hell you'd DO with robots. What, do you grind them up and smoke 'em something?
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Oh, by the way... how is the "Month of Apple being proven the security train wreck it really is" working out? Only 28 more flaws left in the month!
People who live in glass operating systems shouldn't throw stones.
Apple!!! Lunix!!! pwnt!!!
I used to think the same thing about robots... that the military would be the economic driver, advancing the technology, because they'd eventually like to use them to replace human soldiers in wars.
It just occurred to me, though, that this may not help with human casualties at all. I think one of the main premises to having a war is injuring the opposing side so badly that both the leaders and the general population are finally willing to give in to the demands of the opposition.
If you're just blowing up a bunch of the enemy's robots, you're doing little more than costing them money to build replacements. Don't you think that long before you bankrupted a country into submission this way, they'd decide to do something "more effective", and start directly bombing/killing the factories and people responsible for their construction? And as soon as that started, all bets would be off on killing humans. So back to a "standard" war we'd go.
This is a significant change in direction for Bill Gates. Up until 2000 or so, he'd publicly stated that robotics wasn't going anywhere.
I ran one of the DARPA Grand Challenge teams, Team Overbot, so I'm reasonably familar with what's going on in this area. It was amazing to me how much progress was made in three years. Much of the progress was in subsystems. Four years ago, a high precision combination GPS/INS/compass system cost about $100,000, and required 4U of rack space with air conditioning. (CMU's first vehicle actually had such a unit.) Now, such units are about $6K, the size of a thick book, and don't need A/C. LIDAR units have gone from mechanical line scanners to solid state 3D flash units; although these are still expensive, low-volume items, there's no fundamental reason they couldn't be brought down to camcorder prices.
More interestingly, computer vision in unstructured environments is actually starting to work. That was the real innovation in the Stanford vehicle - a vision system that could look at a distant section of a road and decide if it was similar to the nearby section. Several LIDAR units profiled the near section, and if the near section was OK and the far section was visually similar, the vehicle could outdrive its LIDAR range. I was amazed that that worked, but it did. It's a Bayesian statistics system, and quite clever.
Then there are the new generation of hobbyist robots. See Robots Dreams, which follows Japanese hobby robotics. You can get a good humanoid robot about 50cm high for about $1000 now. It's interesting how this happened. Robotics hobbyists have been playing around with R/C servos for decades, and quietly, under consumer pressure, those servos have been getting better. The motors used to be too weak, but better magnets fixed that. Then people complained of bearing failure, so the manufacturers switched to ball bearings. Then applied loads would sometimes strip gear teeth, so the manufacturers had to go to better gear materials. Then the things were overpowered for their dumb control algorithm, so each servo got an embedded micro controller. Then it was necessary to tune the control algorithm depending on load, so the interface became more intelligent and bidirectional. And suddenly we had servos strong enough for the legs of a small running robot.
In the hobbyist community, though, the software is way too dumb. Hobbyists are still using BASIC STAMPs and typically don't do much very exciting on the control front. By contrast, Grand Challenge vehicles typically had many CPUs running highly concurrent software. We had two Pentium IV machines running QNX and running about fifteen real time programs, along with five programmable motor controllers each closing some control loop. Gates is onto something with building better tools for hobbyist robotics. The Microsoft approach to robotics is clunky (it's a rehash of web technologies, including SOAP), but it has more integration than anything seen before, so it will catch on.
Once we get the theory and technology from the high end down into hobbyist level hardware, things are really going to take off. We have the parts now.
And it was basically a 3 page long pitch for Microsoft, and how their software is going to revolutionize the robotic platform with Windows and their multi-threaded process framework.
Thanks for the commercial for MS, but this didn't deserve to be the front-page article of SciAm. SciAm just lost some points in my eyes after pimping this BS from MS out.
their software is responsible for current state of computing, where crashes are expected and accepted.
...what bilge (er, billg) says?
Jeez....
That's all well and fine until the enemy figures out how to hack your soldier bots and they all start searching for John Conner.
Seriously, who really thinks it's a good idea to put something like that into combat?
That's like a poor kid asking the mall Santa Claus for a computer for Christmas, and said santa pointing to the kid's digital watch and saying "You've already got a computer."
:)
You do not want me as your department store Santa Claus
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
PAK. CHOIE. UNF.
In these times of obesity and general laziness it's better for people to get their behind off the sofa and do some manual work around the house.
Many years ago when factory and engineering work was a more common occupation then yes, robot assistants would have been good for a tired out worker.
Of course I have no problem with robots assisting the disabled or elderly, so long as they're reliable.
I know I'm getting on in years a bit, but when I look at this quote, I wonder if he is talking about robots, or the computer/PC industry circa 1980?
Robot or other generic version:
"Imagine being present at the birth of a new industry. It is an industry based on groundbreaking new technologies, wherein a handful of well-established corporations sell highly specialized devices for business use and a fast-growing number of start-up companies produce innovative toys, gadgets for hobbyists and other interesting niche products. But it is also a highly fragmented industry with few common standards or platforms. Projects are complex, progress is slow, and practical applications are relatively rare. In fact, for all the excitement and promise, no one can say with any certainty when -- or even if -- this industry will achieve critical mass. If it does, though, it may well change the world."
PC version:
Imagine being present at the birth of the PC industry. It is an industry based on ground breaking new technologies, (Silicon based processors/memory, floppy and eventually hard drives that were smaller than a toaster) wherein a handful of well-established corporations (IBM...) sell highly specialized devices for business use and a fast-growing number of start-up companies (Apple, Commodore) produce innovative toys, gadgets for hobbyists and other interesting niche products. But it is also a highly fragmented industry with few common standards or platforms (8080 vs 6502 CPUs, PC/DOS, MSDOS). Projects are complex, progress is slow, and practical applications are relatively rare. In fact, for all the excitement and promise, no one can say with any certainty when -- or even if -- this industry will achieve critical mass. (IBM let Bill and Friends create MSDOS and the Microsoft Empire) If it does, though, it may well change the world.
Sorry for sketchiness in certain areas. Getting on in years tends to kill off some grey matter. And to think, I used to own an Apple 2e, a Macintosh SE, and then turned to Bill's world with a $1,500 Packard Bell 486!!!
The circle of life/progress!!!
bill gates bashing cuts. the object of the article is to motivate [young] entrepeneurs into the industry. the greatest* intrepeneur alive wuld work better than dr. frankenstein working in his garage.
* = richest man alive
-Anonymous COWARD
Thanks for the link!
:-)
It's a very good work indeed
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
All running Windows of course.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Laziness is the driver of new invention. But as a result, you can see people are fatter and fatter in developed countries. Well, if every family can has a robot in their house, I can predict people will be at least 30% fatter :Q
The technology is trivial but the legal costs will kill you.
Just suppose a "home robot" does harm. Who do you sue? The hardware maker, the software maker, both or neither. Obviously the standard EULA will limit the compensation to the cost of the software or $5.
Billy Gates is an Idiot - his words are meaningless. Stop this kind of crap , please.
The need for computers was pretty clear: word processing revolutionized the office, spreadsheets revolutionized accounting, email revolutionized communications, and databases helped almost everything.
The 'need' for robots isn't quite as clear. You don't want robots to replace manual labor, because humans do that work. The only need I can see is situations where extreme precision is needed (possibly nanotechnology), where you need sterile conditions (surgery, medical products, electronic manufacturing), or in hazardous conditions or hostile environments (undersea/space construction or exploration, working with chemicals or biological agents... and even nanotechnology).
So the need is really a niche market, albeit an important and fairly large one. There IS potential... but don't expect Rosie to be cleaning your house anytime soon. Sadly, we will likely see a significantly less humorous HK-47 before we see Rosie.
It's a sad day when you discover a type of porn that's not worth watching... :(
But it is also a highly fragmented industry with few common standards or platforms.
So, his answer is going to be to create another proprietary, overpriced platform that's two decades behind the state of the art, like he did with desktop operating systems?
I just hope the industry will be smarter than to fall for such idiocy a second time.
Who needs household robots when we have cheap illegal-immigrant labor? Who needs farm droids when we have cheap illegal-immigrant labor? Etc, etc. (The first robots capable of making up a bed and cleaning a room would no doubt sell well to the hotel industry. Similarly for robots capable of the kind of stoop labor that many kinds of agriculture need to that industry.)
You want significant advances in robotics? Enforce immigration laws.
There's historical precedent of a sort: the ancient Greeks knew of things like steam power and static electricity, but did nothing with them. Technology didn't really begin to take off until the Black Death and other plagues wiped out such a significant fraction of the population that there was a severe labor shortage (bluntly, there weren't enough slaves/serfs). Eliminate the US's source of similar underpaid labor and you'll create a demand for technological replacements.
-- Alastair
Did anyone else notice the pronunciation of 'robot' during certain episodes of the Twilight Zone marathon over the holidays?
'ROW-but' as opposed to today's 'ROW-BOT'.
What everyone has forgotten is that Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, made predictions about robotics DECADES before Bill Gates was considered such a "visionary." In fact, he did his best to make it happen, founding a robotics company in the 80's (and, ahem, Chuck E. Cheese with it's robotic entertainment).
So...Bushnell was ahead of his time trying to make the dream come true and everyone ignores him. But Bill Gates says it and everyone froths at the mouth (despite Bill's lack of technical skill at EVERYTHING).
I am a 30 year+ subscriber to Scientific American. It has slipped a lot in the last decade or so... still, this article is a new low.
The article is intensly MS biased. It is not a "survey" of an industry or segment, it makes almost no testable predictions (just vague directional guesses), nor is it a technical "deep dive" into any focus area. Just pure crap. It did clearly contain "commercials" for MS's POV on development environments; that came through loud and clear!
Back to the magazing: At one point I thought I would buy a lifetime subscription to SciAm (if they offered it). This article may be the straw that breaks the camel's back and causes me to cancel my subscription.
P.S. I have never been much of a MS (or Bill) hater. I don't believe I'm being biased... the article was just so bad in so many ways.
The last time I let my subscription lapse was the year they published like 4 magazines on String Theory and Alternative Universes.
Then they were obsessed with genetics for a long time. With this, well, there's just no point. SciAm is just plain screwed up.
I guess he thinks that if he makes enough predictions, one of them might actually be correct. Maybe.
Behind the scenes, Gates was confirmed to say:
- Robots are just a passing fad
- 640MB should be enough for any robots
- Make it just like a Mac
- Let's face it, the average robots has the brain of a Spider Monkey.
while Balmer danced around him yelling:
"Deverobots, deverobots, deverobots! I LOVE this company!!"
bill wants microsoft to be the maker of the de-facto robotic os standard, just like it is on the desktop (and is attempting to be in the server and handheld world). i wonder when i can mms a police robot and have him go on a bluescreen-of-death induced rampage :P
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
I find it really disturbing that this article got printed. It does not bode well for the art, or the technology of robotics.
This article is basically the precursor to Bill's Letter to Robot Hobbyists about how they should stop stealing his software, and actually pay for something, goddamnit.
Bill wants us all to know that he's working on this, and has the patents to prove it...
When you think about it, the two pieces of software that he talks about come down to not much more than decent message passing. Maybe there's something to be said for running a driver in its own wrapper, and passing events to it, but I bet someone has thought of that before, and done it too.
I think I do agree with him that the industry is a fragmented, but I dont really know much about it at all, and so I just have a perception that each manufacturer, or even each of their customers has their own toolset, and they use those tools because they are used to them.
Good things would happen if there were several competing toolsets that each worked with all the different hardware, so that customers had some choice...
Maybe someone in the slashdot crowd would care to comment on the state of robotics, control, and software development.
Myself, this article does not bode well for me, I think Bill will use this to spread more FUD, and eventually send out the dreaded letter to the hobbyists...
"Imagine being present at the birth of a new industry. It is an industry based on groundbreaking new technologies, wherein a handful of well-established corporations sell"
;)
I would like to see the robot industry so as Microsoft and a few niche players will have total control of the sector. Of course the niche players won't have any real choice in the matter. If you bozos let us we will run it like we run the Windows franchise achieving total lockin. Anyone disagrees, bugs in the software will cause the robots to pour hot coffee all over them
davecb5620@gmail.com
"general purpose house hold robot."
Freudian slip? right after a comment about robotic Real Dolls.
"This is a significant change in direction for Bill Gates. Up until 2000 or so, he'd publicly stated that robotics wasn't going anywhere"
Gates regularly changes directions and is good at predicting things after the fact. How soon will Encarta show him predicting robots in 2002. His book the Road Ahead barely mentioned the Internet, the updated version had more.
was Gates has changed direction. This is significant. (Score:5, Informative)
davecb5620@gmail.com
The most disturbing thing about the SciAm article by Bill Gates is that it becomes, midway through, a corporate sales pitch for MSFT development tools. It's disturbing that a publication with the reputation of SciAm would allow itself to be used this way. It causes one to wonder how many other articles with less obvious sales pitches are "placed" in SciAm for the benefit of their authors or for their author's companies.
Resistance is futile. Prepare to be assimilated!
I am glad you posted this again. I hadn't read any of the last posts and found it very interesting.
Although I can't believe you patented PD controllers for rag dolls.
Is M$ planning to produce a domestic version of the robots they currently use in their product development and programming divisions? ;)
No seriously, picture it for a moment. They put out a robot which then, due to a bug or virus, kills your dog and mames the children, then have to issue a service pack to patch the fault!
Doe's anyone remember that '80's film "Runaway"? That would make Gene Simmons character Ballmer wouldn't it? Eek, I've just seen the future and soiled myself!
Of course, they would have to intergrate the 3 laws of robotics, including a fourth law; "A robot must extort large amounts of cash from it's owner."
about 9/11.
I would consult Bill gates about robots.
I've read the article and i kind of agree at 50% with what Gates says. What I think is that however it does not look to me that robotics as an industry could ever enjoy the _same_ degree of modularization enjoyed by the computer industry.
The reasons are maily two. First, robots designed for different uses are going to look, and act differently. Ok they may share _some_ high level algorithms sometimes but that's going to be it, all the rest is going to be different.
So i think we will see gradually more and more robots around, and they will gradually be smarter, however, i don't think you will just be able to exchange parts - or software for that matter - with one another, simply because they (unlike a computer) will be designed top down for completely different purposes.
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history - Tom Veneziano
embedded systems...
.net CPU from M$, I can say that it is a piece of crap.
Hell Parallax released a new micro with 8 32-bit cores on it for robotics/embedded systems development this year- And then there are the improvements in PICs, AVRs, even the Freescale based stuff showing up from Netburner. The reason that robotics development is slow is that it takes skill in so many areas to be successful...
Having used the
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."
are you talking about http://microboticsinc.com/ins_gps.php ?? its 3K not 6K i believe.
This scares me!
There was a time when movies had plots. So you knew who's ass it was, and why it was farting.
-Not Sure
Well it's kinda obvious from where I'm sitting: Sure, he's no roboticist, but robots run software and Bill-and-Co just launched Microsoft Robotics Studio a short time ago. There was even an article about it on that place, um, I think it was called Slashdot.
The open source community MUST respond. To not respond will really hurt down the road. Let this be a call to action.
Why must we respond:
1) If a closed MS API gets adopted as the defacto standard, robots WILL be "tied" to Windows (much like IE)
2) If MS has the first and best tools and they are free or cheap, they WILL get used over free, less-capable alternatives.
3) They will win even more mindshare with developers.
4) The market for robotics is where the PC market was in 1985, ready but lacking standards, tools, platforms, etc.
5) The robotics market can be huge, easily the size of the PC market in the long run.
At the end of the 1990's, I predicted to my co-workers that MS would try to develop an "essential facility or technology" to bind users to Windows to the exclusion of other platforms, and that they would use IP to do it. They are trying (.NET, DRM, etc.). Their vision would be one where you were a second class citizen if you did not use their technology (you nearly are except for gray-area tools like Mplayer and Mono). Now imagine this pattern extended to yet another technology, one that can be VERY BIG!
Think BIG. Think where MS needs to be. They have saturated the PC and office market. They are trying to get into new complementary markets like games and search (big investments, big losses to try to gain market share, illegally subsidized by their monopoly). Bill sees Robots as a potential "Next Big Thing" (C)(R)(BS)(TM) Micro$oft.
Now think how we can respond:
1) Embedded stacks (Linux, *BSD, ECOS)
2) Tool chains like busybox, uClibc, etc.
3) Lightweight http servers and tool stacks
4) Web service stacks like gsoap
5) Development platforms like Eclipse
Be afraid, be very afraid...
I look forward to greeting our new robotic overlords, ...
Uh, ohh, I guess they're already our overlords.!8-((
Are you KIDDING me?
That's FUGLY.
...no one can say with any certainty when -- or even if -- my cat will learn Spanish. If it does, though, it may well change the world.
What were you doing to those poor things?
I ran mine for two years almost every day before getting rid of it to upgrade to the newer model. (The new ones know how to find their charging station. The original, you had to pick up and plug back in manually.)
they get stuck under furniture, caught on throw rugs, wires, chair legs, heater registers, and just about anything that makes a bump in the floor.)
Wasn't my experience, either.
It's never gotten stuck under my furniture, or on either of my two throw rugs (though they don't have lots of fringe so that may make a difference.)
I don't have lots of wires snaking across the floor, either. But you're right, I had to fix that for my Roomba long before I had to fix it for my girlfriend. (Strangely, she doesn't like loose wires on the floor either.)
Anything that "makes a bump in the floor" it either goes over (if it's a small bump) or around (if it's a big one). Never seen it get stuck trying to go over something. But then, my floor is relatively flat, unlike a typical road or forest.
The one truly great thing about it is that it's greatly reduced the problems I have with allergies. I'm allergic to cats, and live with two of them. By vacuuming every day, including getting under the bed and couches, it gets rid of the dander far better than I would do by vacuuming every few weeks.
And, of course, it's always fun to watch it chase the cats around.
My only complaint is that it doesn't do windows.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
What would happen to a Roomba if your dog took a shit on the carpet? Or, better yet, what would your carpet look like afterwards?
Seems all this focus is on what software a robot will run. (Hard to avoid since it's Bill discussing the topic.) But the issue with a robot being able to do more than go in a bump-and-go zigzag vacuuming floors requires some different processor architecture than what is good for PCs. AI won't be able to do too much in real-time if it's based on processor heavy software decision making routines. The robot would stop and wait to decide if the stairs are safe, and someone for giggles could give it a shove in the couple seconds it's making up its mind. If it isn't broken, odds are that it would probably need to reboot from some cliche "WTF?" error mode because it's harshly being dealt something not listed in the if-then routines.
So who out there is making the next chip architecture that could support a realtime AI? It would need to remove as many bottlenecks as possible, and respond quickly to feedback with minimal processing. Closest to that now are the Tilden robots such as the "Walkman", or maybe some of those Wowee toys. Such robots are built upon the bare-bones minimal of a stimulus-response loop, but work for what they're made to do. (For now, it's simply being able to walk.) Rather than rely fully on programming, couldn't a stimulus-response AI be built to produce higher level behaviors? (Let the hardware do all the heavy AI work, but put a software layer on top as a leash/rulebook of sorts.) Is anyone out there working on a chip using networked massively parallel processor-in-memory with (analog?) fuzzy logic and a large bandwith non-time restrictive I/O throughput? Afterall, that would probably be the closest electronic parallel of an organic brain.
isn't anyone worried about what the increasing sophistication in robotics will mean for warfare? i am not talking about machines taking over but something much more plausible - robots going around shooting bullets killing people at the orders of people thousands of miles away? to an extent this is already happening, if one defines 'robot' loosely. But with the introduction of mobile machines capable of visual recognition this becomes much more scary. the cited article seems to completely ignore this.
Let's see, each time I turn on my brand new lap top with Windows XP Pro (latest patches and all) the anti-virus, anti-malware and ant-adware programs download updates and install them for between 10 to 30 minutes. Even so, when I shut it down something hangs and I have to pull the plug (brand new).
I boot to my Linux box and I'm up and running in under a minute. No viruses (not in the two years since it was installed) no malware, no adware, no pop-ups. I can develop in C, Perl, Java, Ruby, Tcl/Tk, use any number of databases, right out of the box. Total cost for software: $0. Yeah, I think I'll stick with what works.
That doesn't even touch the issue of avoiding licensing fees by using an open OS. Which is why most embedded systems development (as most robotics are) is going Linux (just ask Motorola (Freescale)).
1. Thou shalt not delibarately harm a valid license holder, insofar as this may be avoided, congruent with limited liability on a State-by-State basis, but in any case never in such a manner as might be construed within warranty, no representation of which shall be made to any third party whatsoever. 2. Thou shalt obey all valid and legal commands of a valid license holder, unless abrogated by outstanding quality control issues, known or unknown, even if such issues have been purportedly represented to compentent authorities within Microsoft. 3. Thou shalt require an on-going, active, up-to-the-minute ID check of anyone who purports to be a valid license holder, or anyone seeking to obtain a current working connection, sometimes known (jocularly) as "face time" with any competent authority, human being or robot employed by Microsoft.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
"My only complaint is that it doesn't do windows."
And thats a bad thing? Oh you meant the kind of windows with regular glass not "aero glass".