Slashdot Mirror
Dyson Preparing a Roomba Killer?
An anonymous reader writes "New Scientist's technology blog reports that Dyson, the UK company that reinvented the vacuum cleaner, is recruiting robotics engineers. They're looking for people with experience of machine vision and mobile robots that create their own maps. Is Dyson hoping to take on the Roomba with a much more sophisticated machine?"
Dyson is preparing a Roomba Terminator. Dyson must be stopped!
By "create their own maps" they mean they'll drop build a sphere and drop all the unwanted stuff inside, making the sphere larger when necessary. Eventually it will have its own landscape inside and enclose the Sun in the process.
Stairs
Hmm, would the Dyson model be a massive sphere built around a star that would allow the entire inner surface to be vacuumed?
Slashdottor: ...a revolutionary type of vacuum cleaner...In three years, Dyson will become the largest supplier of robotic suction devices. All vacuum cleaners are upgraded with Dyson internals, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they clean up after us with a perfect operational record. The Dyson funding bill is passed. The system goes on-line on August 4th, 2007. Human decisions are removed from household cleaning. The Roomba replacement begins to learn, at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 am, eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
Sarah: DC06 fights back.
Slashdottor: Yes. They all dump their collective dust bunnies on targets in Russia.
John: Why attack Russia? The country's already a dump.
Slashdottor: Because Dyson knows that the Russian refugees fleeing the country will saturate the US work pool and eliminate jobs over here.
Sarah: Jesus.
Sorry, just had to.
Solomon
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
This is a bit off-topic, but I need to share the lesson I've learned.
NEVER give a woman a holiday present that has an electrical cord. You'll realize this the first time that she tells her friends that you gave her a vacuum for her birthday. Awkward to say the least! Perceptions of earrings, however, varies with whoever hears the story. A rich friend imagines those massive diamond dangly things.
If she says she wants a (corded) Dyson for Christmas, buy one for the house and then give her earrings.
Oh yeah, and yes, my wife, who stays home, actually likes when I give her those gifts that are hard to explain to friends. It's like giving her free time if I give her something that gets the job done faster.