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NAO Humanoid Robot Set To Hit the Market
KentuckyFC writes "Earlier this year, Paris-based Aldebaran-Robotics picked up $8 million in venture capital funding to help commercialize its NAO humanoid robot. The target market for this device is research labs working on the next generation of robotic hardware and software. Today, the company has posted a detailed spec of NAO on the arXiv saying that it expects the robot to cost about $15,000 each. That's cheap compared to other humanoids. Fuitsu's HOAP humanoids cost $50,000 each and various estimates price Honda's Asimo at $1 million per bot, although they are not for sale. Aldebaran-Robotics says that NAO's cost should come down to about $6,000 as production ramps up."
Yes, it does run Linux.
A hundred years from now, whether the readers are C or Fe, they will get a feeling of nausea reading about the 'retail prices' of 'humanoids.'
No, because it will be illegal to talk about the robocaust.
If it can't reach the beer in the fridge, then who really cares.
FTA: "Initially, delivered with basic behaviors, the robot will be, at its market introduction, the ideal introduction to robots. Eventually, with many improved behaviors, it will become an autonomous family companion. Finally, with more sophisticated functions, it will adopt a new role, assisting with daily tasks (monitoring, etc.)"
Will, it, have, full, comma, functionality?
Although big dog is great (and I was amazed at its abilities), I pissed myself laughing at this one instead: Another big dog robot
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Specialized robots are useless outside their function, and are thus just expensive deadweight when not in use. For example, a Roomba is great at vacuuming a floor, but when the floor is clean it can't do anything else. It can't carry boxes or wash dishes. You'd need additional robots for those specialized tasks, and they're going have the same "deadweight" problem as the Roomba too.
A humanoid robot would be able to do any physical job that a human could do. Such robots would be versatile enough to be useful all the time. A single humanoid robot vacuums the floor, then it carries boxes, and then washes dishes, and then etc etc etc. A humanoid robot would always be useful in some way, and thus more efficient in the long run.