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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."
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!
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 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.
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...so by your definition an industrial robot (the type used in car factories) isn't a robot...
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.
Bill Gates is an expert on marketing and hype. He's not an expert on technology. As an x-microsquish employee I can assure you that Mr. Gates was not known for his technical abilities no matter what the micro$oft's PR machine tries to tell people. Much of what the PR machine claims uncle Billy had a hand in had to be completely rewritten or he didn't even actually touch it.
What you are seeing coming from Microsoft is their marketing and PR machine are trying to hype the tech sector to give it, and themselves, a boost. The level or AI (whatever that really is) and robotics is not close to the C3PO bot that most people think of as robotics. Dumb vacuums that can zip around a floor and avoid obstacles doesn't seem like much of an advance in robotics or AI from what was possible a decade or more ago.
Microsoft was a two hit pony, Windows and Office, and those horses are getting long in the tooth. Microsoft needs to sell a new dream. Sell a new prayer. The hope for C3PO is their latest attempt to see what sticks. Robotics has an element of fantasy around it which they are hoping to hook the public on. The fact that robotics and AI are so far from C3PO means they are guaranteed a long run of the selling upgraded new tech "technology" for decades to come.
Do yourself a favor and read up on where robotics is really at before buying the hype or buying into Microsoft's latest money making scheme.
This is another classic case of "Where's the beef Microsoft?"