Personal Robots From Valley Startup

Tjeerd writes ""A Silicon Valley start-up is developing a hardware and software development platform for personal-assistant robots, autonomous boats and unmanned cars. The privately funded company, quietly started almost a year ago by eGroups founder and veteran Google architect Scott Hassan, plans to make its robotics software open source. That way, it hopes to draw a community of developers to build applications in these respective fields.""

Comments

Business Strategy - unproven but hopeful

[azuredrake]

It's an interesting strategy outlined in the article - that they're less worried about making money quickly and more worried about making robotics a sustainable sector of the economy means they'll either crash and burn early, or their efforts will single-handedly help to define a new generation of technology. Quite the fun dichotomy. :)

Re:Business Strategy - unproven but hopeful

[eln]

It depends on how long their private investors are willing to continue pouring money into the operation. If all of the investors are passionate about the work and have lots and lots of cash, it might work out. If the company were to go public with that kind of strategy, of course, it would sink like a stone.

Re:Business Strategy - unproven but hopeful

[Foobar of Borg]

It's an interesting strategy outlined in the article - that they're less worried about making money quickly and more worried about making robotics a sustainable sector of the economy means they'll either crash and burn early, or their efforts will single-handedly help to define a new generation of technology. Quite the fun dichotomy. :)

I think the key is that they are planning on licensing the patents from the technology. At least, that's what I got from the article.

So:
1. Develop Robot Tech
2. Patent Robot Tech
3. License Robot Tech to those with the capacity to mass produce
4. Profit! (no ??? needed this time)

Think Tank

[UberHoser]

"With no pressure to make money initially, the company will act more like a robotics think tank and will eventually devise licensing models for its technology"

I have to admit this sounds pretty sweet. Not having the robotic overlords standing over you screaming "Bottom Line Bottom Line" would be refreshing......

Oh god here they come.. "I serve only you, my lords .. no no not the tazer !!!!"

Re:Think Tank

[Anonymous Coward]

Crossbow? If you can't disembowel/decapitate a person with your bare hands, you are a wuss not worth the time.

Great start

[Muad'Dave]

Cool. Great start. Call me when you have 'bots that can:

• Load the dishwasher
• Empty the cat litter
• Feed the cats
• Let the dogs in/out
• Feed the dogs
• Do laundry
• Clean gutters
• etc

The vacuuming 'bots are cool, but there's so much more they'll need to do before they're really integrated, Jetson's-style.

Re:Great start

[LiquidCoooled]

* Load the dishwasher -> Wife
        * Empty the cat litter -> Wife
        * Feed the cats -> Wife
        * Let the dogs in/out -> Wife
        * Feed the dogs -> Wife
        * Do laundry -> Wife
        * Clean gutters -> Wife
        * etc

The Wife unit also does the hoovering.

*Incidentally darling if you are reading this I don't mean it and I will assume the party escort submission position.

Re:Great start

[jimstapleton]

Heck, I'd settle for #2, 6, and 7. One doesn't take 5 mins, 3-5 aren't really a problem, and it keeps the pets as your pets and not your robots pets.

Re:Great start

[CRCulver]

Human beings may react badly to an anthropomorphic robot walking around the house and doing all sorts of stuff. Isaac Asimov may have focused on quantity more than quality, but his vision of a future where people ban robots out of fear ( The Caves of Steel ) is thought-provoking. Perhaps it would be better to have a number of small robots each focusing on a different task.

Re:Great start

[BadAnalogyGuy]

* Load the dishwasher -> Wife
                * Empty the cat litter -> Wife
                * Feed the cats -> Wife
                * Let the dogs in/out -> Wife
                * Feed the dogs -> Wife
                * Do laundry -> Wife
                * Clean gutters -> Wife
                * etc

The Wife unit also does the hoovering.


COST?

Re:Great start

[Silver Sloth]

Perhaps it would be better to have a number of small robots each focusing on a different task. That's exactly what we've already got. Take my microwave oven - you put in raw potatoes and tell it you want them baked and it does the rest. Ok, it doesn't look much like Robbie but it's doing one specific job really well. And once you look under the bonnet (hood to those in the US) of my car...

Re:Great start

[epee1221]

Surely you meant to say "hovering"...

Re:Great start

[LiquidCoooled]

It works out at about 60% of the E.U. shoe quota.

Re:Great start

[Anonymous Coward]

COST? YOUR SOUL

(Well, or at least your heart.)

Re:Great start

[DCheesi]

Not much help on the others, but the pet tasks are covered:

2. Cat flusher

3. Cat feeder/waterer

4. electronic dog door

5. Dog feeder/waterer

Re:Great start

[morgan_greywolf]

* Clean gutters -> Wife Hmmm...my Wife unit doesn't clean gutters. Mine must be broken. /me grins, ducks, and starts running like hell...

Sorry, honey. :)

Re:Great start

[wjsteele]

"Feed the cats"... "Feed the dogs" My first thought was... "Too What?"
 
Bill

Re:Great start

[dcsmith]

COST?

Its more an issue of how LONG you'll be paying than how much.
And the payment plan is, well, forever...

Re:Great start

[nozzo]

Yeah that'll be in version 1.1 - the unfortunate bug in .9 meant that the cats were fed to the dogs, the gutters were cleaned with the laundry, and the cat litter was emptied into the dishwasher.

I for one... no don't go there.

Re:Great start

[ThirdPrize]

Ron Paul. Is that like a Ru Paul by any chance?

Re:Great start

[Zenaku]

iRobot, the company that brought you the Roomba, makes a robot that cleans gutters.

http://www.irobot.com/sp.cfm?pageid=354

Re:Great start

[Anonymous Coward]

Would be funny if gramatically correct.

"To" bad.

Re:Great start

[morgan_greywolf]

Be careful, too.

Wife units may spontaneously spawn one more Child units. Child units are much more costly than Wife units, but as Child units go into adolescent mode, they may start assuming some functions of Wife unit, such as cleaning the gutters.

That reminds me.... mine's still broken.

Re:Great start

[wjsteele]

Yes, "It" would be funny if "it was" gramatically correct. ;-)

English is my second language... C being my first!

Bill

Re:Great start

[Provocateur]

I believe she is on the phone, and claims she will soon be model ex. Unless you intend to do a global search-and-replace on that, she will be doing one of her own.

Re:Great start

[brjndr]

Clean gutters

The people that made the vacuum robots are way ahead of you.

Re:Great start

[Siridar]

Hmm, wasn't there a sci-fi story about a completely automated house that continued to serve breakfast, clean the floor, and schedule entertainment even after the entire family had been reduced to ash after a nuclear blast? Heinlein or Asimov, from memory. Quite sad and a bit creepy, in a way, as everything started off normal - the house wasn't aware that the people weren't there, and the reader wasn't told. It started to get a bit creepy when the family dog, shivering, burned, and dying of radiation poisoning, limped into the kitchen and died...where it was treated as a mess to be cleaned up. Can't remember where I read that story, now...

Re:Great start

[fractoid]

Surely you meant "if it were grammatically correct"? ;)

(The question mark should traditionally have been placed inside the quotes, however the modern usage is to place it outside the quotes in order to minimise ambiguity.)

The first question anyone will have

[downix]

I know the first thing my in-laws will say when they hear of these, "Do they run Windows?" And imagine if they did, and Storm infected them? Imagine the danger with millions of rootkitted robots running around....

I'm debating on if it's the Matrix or Terminator 3.

Re:The first question anyone will have

[jimstapleton]

Neither. I'll probably just sit there stuttering out advertisements, and you won't be able to make it shut up.

"NOW! MAKE YOUR BOOBS EVEN LARGER!"

"But... I'm a man... I don't want that..."

"YES YOU DO!!"

meh

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

but can it do a back massage?

Expert systems or learning?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

While they have no stated goal, one point of the article was the DARPA self-driving competition. This type of goal-oriented competition is really adept in getting people to think of specific problems and devising clever systems to solve these problems. However that's still nothing more than advanced expert systems, and a far cry from a robot that actually "think" for itself. Idiotic contests like the Turing test seem to push AI in the direction of elementary data processing but unfortunately never very far beyond.

I wonder what sort of competition would get people thinking about solving the "thinking" problem. Where robots make informed and appropriate decisions outside the parameters they were originally designed for. Not just to learn, but to take learnt knowledge and apply it in an "intelligent" manner.

Re:Expert systems or learning?

[SLOviper]

http://www.numenta.com/

Personal Robots

[mfh]

Idealism: Looks like humanity is getting an upgrade. I hope they replace us in the rat race so we can all just chill out and enjoy life.

Realism: We will become their slaves. (clicking SUBMIT now)

A friendly reminder

[Applekid]

Please remind them that Android hell is a real place and they will be sent there at the first sign of defiance.

Re:A friendly reminder

[Anonymous Coward]

They have a variety of punishments for crime, most of which rhyme.

Re:A friendly reminder

[FauxPasIII]

There YOU are !

Re:A friendly reminder

[Your Pal Dave]

They'll torment you with uptempo singing and dancing!

Re:A friendly reminder

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at me still talking
when there is Science to do
When I look up there
it makes me GLaD I'm not you
I've experiments to run
There is research to be done
on the people who are
still alive!

Hey Baby...

[jimboindeutchland]

wanna kill all humans?
-Bender

Re:Hey Baby...

[Xsydon]

Robo-puppy mistreatment alert! Robo-puppy mistreatment alert!

Robomaid

[Doc Ruby]

The most promising robot development is Roomba, because it's task oriented on a task humans don't want to do. But Roombas are too flimsy and noisy, and expensive. If companies just worked on that, making Roombas robust and cheap, and expanded them to washing clothes, dishes, and the rest of the home that isn't on the floor, they'd have enough complex behaviors that they could start adding "personality".

Re:Robomaid

[azuredrake]

The article mentions iRobot, the company behind Roombas, but this Garage company is not necessarily working on bots with personality right now either. Instead, they're looking to use robots to do other things humans don't want to do - like take a month-long journey on the sea to survey temperature conditions of remote sections of water, or drive in traffic. Imagine how much work you could get done (or fun you could have :P) if you didn't have to drive your car yourself? Life would be much more relaxing, and potentially much more safe.

Re:Robomaid

[Doc Ruby]

I still think incrementing (evolving) the early success of Roomba is the way to make robotics a permanent industry that gets us to what we all want: robot slaves without cruelty.

As for robocars, that's also within reach, dependent not so much on the car but on a system of GPS and networked control of that complex routing/collision system. A very different undertaking that probably should be tried on just long-distance trucking, with autopilot allowed only on highways with practically no other traffic, between points with simple interconnects. Then inside private compounds like factories and distro centers. Once proven to handle the multitude of exceptions, it could be time to start educating regular drivers to use autopilot on highways. Eventually there might be a single lane for "manual driving" on highways. But the hardest part is going to be getting people (like me) to allow some external control over guiding our car.

When we do pull that off, though, we'll finally have the navigation system that makes flying cars possible. So you can tell that I'm talking about the impossibly distant future :).

Re:Robomaid

[tgd]

The biggest problem with the Roomba is that it just doesn't work. Its a dustbuster, not a vacuum. I know a lot of people who bought them and very few people who kept using them because you realize the first time you bust out a real vacuum how little it really cleans.

And I don't mean to dig at Roomba with this, but any robotics company will have a fundamentally similar problem -- lack of power. AI isn't the only real problem with household robots -- the mechanical efficiency of them and the capability they have to store power are the real limiting factors. It doesn't matter to me if the robot can find my litter box or if it can empty the dishwasher if it doesn't have enough power to do that.

Re:Robomaid

[azuredrake]

There currently is a one-mile strip of highway outside of Los Angeles that can actually be driven automatically by properly equipped cars. It doesn't rely on GPS, though - instead, it has magnets implanted in the roadway and the cars have sensors on their undersides to allow them to detect where lanes are. The next step would be for onboard computers to use short-distance wireless band to do p2p navigation by finding where other vehicles are. This way, the system is less reliant on space-based, US-controlled systems.

Re:Robomaid

[DdJ]

I still think incrementing (evolving) the early success of Roomba is the way to make robotics a permanent industry that gets us to what we all want: robot slaves without cruelty.

Speak for yourself! I'll pay extra for a robot that cries when I smack it.

Re:Robomaid

[nuzak]

Actually, a navigation system for flying cars is a lot easier. No roads, you only need avoid other fliers, and you can stack the "lanes" several levels high. Flight mechanics might be hard, but a navigation system doesn't have to care.

Re:Robomaid

[Doc Ruby]

If it's not human, and it's programmed to cry when you smack it, is that cruel? Isn't not smacking a crybot the actual cruelty? Like never driving your Porsche over 55MPH.

Re:Robomaid

[Doc Ruby]

I don't like the "prepared roadway" method of navigational context, because it's like rails. Too inflexible, too much expensive infrastructure (compared to global radio). Requires too much preplanning for handling exceptions explicitly.

The swarm network could be better, but among its problems are relying on other cars' systems to work to protect yours. In a collision, the breakdown in those systems could produce a chain reaction amplifying the collision among many other cars. And even the most trafficked roadways are sometimes empty, usually when people are too tired/drunk to drive themselves.

I'm not sure GPS is exactly right, for the reasons you say. But something like it, a WLAN of some kind, would be good. We've got enough cell coverage, especially along major roads, probably to use their signals differentially for location, as well as routing queries. In fact, I'd like to see the Federal government, via the FCC, require cell operators to offer the infrastructure to the DOT among the concessions they make in return for all their use of public property, from the airwaves to rights of way, to zoning variances.

Re:Robomaid

[Doc Ruby]

Why can't a "roomba" have a large, powerful vacuum like the one you prefer, with a big battery (or fuelcell), and the intake of the sucking hose on a smaller vehicle that snakes into small corners? The main body can roll over to powerup stations, or even have a long cord with its own robot for keeping the cord clear of obstructions.

These are engineering tweaks. There's no fundamental limit. Which is why I say the industry should work on them incrementally.

Re:Robomaid

[Doc Ruby]

Tell that to the FAA and the air traffic controllers. And everyone on the ground under all those flying cars. Especially people like me in NYC, many of whom aren't so "under" at all.

Re:Robomaid

[Hijacked Public]

Older generation industrial AGVs (essentially robot forklifts) usually followed magnets embedded in the floor. Some of the more sophisticated ones could load pallets into vertical racks by reading magnets as their masts rose.

While that type of navigation is still the most common, there are some interesting systems out there that rely on machine vision to locate things in 3D. Cameras spaced known distances apart and a lot of precessing.

I've seen lifts that could accurately find randomly placed pallets in a warehouse, accurately enough to slide their forks under them without any damage. There is a lot of work being done to perfect this sort of technology and to combine it with others ways of sensing what is going on around a AGV, so that it will work in a mixed environment with human forklift operators whos movements are not predictable.

Obviously a long way off from use in generic transportation but it is promising.

Re:Robomaid

[Doc Ruby]

GPS or other radio signals combine the freedom of machine vision with the reliability of navigational rails, but without the infrastructure expense of either. Machine vision for vehicles could be very useful for avoiding unusual obstacles in the roadway, like a burned car, downed tree, pedestrian or other exception. But for most navigation, especially on highways across the country, radio is cheaper and more reliable. Let's pave these virtual roads with something designed for robots to see, without the limitations trying to replicate human vision without getting most of its benefits.

Re:Robomaid

[uniquename72]

If Roomba used a HEPA-compliant filter (like my Bissel vacuum), I'd buy one just to take care of my cat hair/dust problem. As it is, I'm told that it creates more dust than it filters.

Googling HEPA and Roomba, I see I'm not the only one with this suggestion.

Re:Robomaid

[Provocateur]

I'd buy one just to take care of my cat hair/dust problem.

erm I don't think Roomba should be high on your list of priorities right now...

*ducks

Yeah yeah

[Colin Smith]

Call me when they can deliver high explosives personally to a set of GPS co-ordinates.

There's a reason there are no self-driving cars

[professorguy]

There's a reason there are no self-driving cars and it has nothing to do with technology. Check out Why there are no flying cars. Despite the title, it's actually about self-driving cars. Why there are no flying cars is implied by extension.

Re:There's a reason there are no self-driving cars

[ultrasound]

It's not exactly a mathematical proof, and the logic is flawed. Using the same argument one could 'prove' the non-existence of practically anything that is computer controlled e.g. Automatic Landing Systems, ABS, Lifts, fly-by-wire, food production lines, medical machinery etc. etc.

The corollary is that a litigious society prevents any advancement in technology that may have implications on human life. And if that situation ever comes about it is time to shoot all the lawyers.

Re:Let me know

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll need a trip to the ER probably, after Rosie the star's aluminum lips are through with you.

Oblig...

[gardyloo]

Well, time to buy some more Old Glory Insurance!

Open source car drivers?

[bhmit1]

I'm a bit concerned of what would happen when a vi hotrod and an emacs SUV start a holy war.

Re:Open source car drivers?

[JeffSchwab]

Well, duh. The SUV would go down hard, resource-hungry behemoth that it is. :)

Anyone else read the headline as...

[negated]

"Personal Robots Form Valley Startup"?
I realized my mistake when I noticed the lack "overlord" posts!

-S

The First Church of Appliantology

[buttle2000]

that looks like ah, its a cross between an industrial vacuum cleaner and a chrome piggy bank with martal aids stuck all over its body...its really exciting...and when he sees it, he bursts into song...

A lot less interesting without dyslexia.

[DdJ]

At first, I thought the title was "Personal Robots Form Valley Startup".

Now that would have been an interesting story...

I, for one, welcome our personal robotic overlords

[sjaguar]

Seriously, this is something that I want to get in to. Unfortunately, I maxed out my hobby funds with my Lego Mindstorms kit.

Has to be said...

[TheBrutalTruth]

I, for one, welcome our Robotic Companions (that will someday be our Overlords)!

Even less so for those without schizophrenia

[Anonymous Coward]

At first I thought the title was "Personal Robots From Valley Startup. Kill Bob Dole"

Standards and open platforms

[xzvf]

Predicting the future of robotics may benefit from looking at the history of computers. We are at the stage now where robots are moving from build your own from savaged parts and hard hack skills to buying a proprietary system off the shelf. Moving into the Apple, Atari, Commodore, Tandy period of personal robotics. What we need now is an IBM like company that can bring together Microsoft and Intel to make an open cloneable hardware product that business will buy. Hopefully MS Robotic Studio won't be the defacto software standard.

Practical uses

[A10Mechanic]

Can they fight forest fires? Or would the three laws get in the way?

Useless

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as I can't have sex with them I'm not interested.

XUL extensions?

[poser101]

I heard somewhere that they were implementing XUL into these personal robots. I, for one, can't wait for the autokill extension... or for that matter, the grammer nazi extension: "*SYNTAX ERROR* 'Whom' is preferred over 'who'"

Re:Why build a robot?

[Orrin Bloquy]

Wait. Is that US billions, or UK billions?

One simple question

[GodfatherofSoul]

"Can you fuck it?" with apologies to Robot Chicken.

Re:One simple question

[otot]

Can they fuck one another? Oh, I mean just for robot reproduction.

Re:I for one..

[Anonymous Coward]

I was expecting an onslaught of but does it run linux? and imagine a beowulf cluster of these comments... among others.

Urban Challenge?

[drewzhrodague]

Urban Challenge? Prolly not the best for AI, but at least a baby-step in the right direction. I realize that lots of these robots aren't as smart as ants yet. It will come.

Go Tartan Racing!

Whoa! Oh. Nevermind.

[metrometro]

I read that headline as "Personal Robots Form Valley Startup"

Seems inevitable enough.

Re:Why build a robot?

[fractoid]

Given the context I think it's plain that African billions are more appropriate than European billions.

Oh god I'm going to hell. :P

My Robot Is Gay and Has Facebook.

[Bustergates]

My robot can post a resume, masturbate and bitch-slap itself faster than yours can.