Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Open Source Humanoid Robot and Its Many Uses

Posted by timothy on from the billy-connolly-in-fido dept.

ruphus13 writes with a story about the open-source centric Willow Garage project (last mentioned on Slashdot early last year), which is making progress in creating helpful humanoid robots for household use. From the article: "PR2 is the mobile hardware design for Willow Garage robots, featuring stereo and laser sensors ... Senior citizens are a big part of the target audience that Willow Garage is aiming for. "All industrialized countries are facing aging populations that require assistance and care to remain independent into old age. By 2020 close to 20 percent of the US population will be over 65," the project leaders say. "These numbers are even higher in Western European and Asian countries." Willow Garage is aiming to produce several types of assistive robots." The PR2 robots are capable of performing critical tasks like cleaning rooms and bringing beer from a refrigerator."

5 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Robotics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I've seen a dog who humps his bed and then licks his weenie for hours on end.

  2. GET YOUR NERD MINDS OUT OF THE GUTTER! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    You all have been caught, just like Mr. Potter

  3. Now isn't the time for metaphores. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Some of us are trying to keep dry, let alone buy a robot.

  4. Obligatory Robot Chicken quote by blake182 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    "Can you f*** it?"

  5. hmm by amnezick · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Can it tell you "goatse.us" takes you to "http://www.google.ca" (at least in firefox [minefield 3.1b2 to be more precise])

    on: so .. after all .. we are slowly moving towards "I, robot".
    What if a malfunction doesn't remind Jack to take his vital heart medicine? Will the 'bot go to jail? Or to the [specially built for this purpose] 'bot compacter maybe? What if the 'bot compacter is controlled by another 'bot and it lets it get away? And then these "escaped" 'bots gather in secret meetings and plan to take over the cruel world that blames them for a line of code they did not ask for to be put in them? And what if I just STFU and go to bed before I turn this into a nightmare? Thought so..

    --
    mov ax,4c00h
    int 21h