"Tweenbots" Test NYC Pedestrian-Robot Relations

MBCook recommends Kacie Kinzer's tweenbots page, which documents some of her experiments with small, anthropomorphized robots that need help. Kinzer is writing a thesis (at the Center for the Recently Possible) centered around investigating whether people in New York City will help a cute little robot to get where it's going. "Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal."

Comments

Re:Would it work elsewhere?

[rec9140]

You don't have to even travel across the Atlantic to get the french snobbery..... just go north a little....... Q U E B E C.

All the anecdotal evidence you need right there and in North America.

Why does a language the is CLEARLY a MINORITY outside Quebec carry so much weight that you can't even work for the Canadian government with out being a french speaker!?! That's discriminatory policy regardless of what county, planet, or universe your in. Setup frenchie lines and office for the MINORITY frenchies. Better yet, just let them separate already!

Now lets look at the BS language policy and language police/gestapo to support these laws and policies..... I don't think that the france or quebec frenchie culture is in danger of massive collapse from the English speaking or any other language speaking country or society. Now if there is ANY language and culture that deserves protection and special status it would be the various Innouit and other native languages of the Indian tribes of the area, and that goes for quebec, the rest of Canada, the US, Australia, and other country.

I can tell you from personal experience travel to Montreal or Quebec City and open your mouth and speak English, your toast. Even remotely look like your American and your toast... They won't help you in a store, hotel, restaraunant, etc...

As for the intolerance there are only two languages that I am flat out intolerant of in any form:

french
spanish

I've done my penance in a french speaking area of Canada, and put up with the crap in the US of having spanish crap all over the place.

You have a better chance of me learning Mandarin Chinese before I would refresh my french.

And the frenchies in frogland don't need to worry as this American has ZERO NONE NADDA interest in travel to, thru, or over france for any reason. Matter of fact I would go out of my way to avoid there and spain altogether. I would go back to Germany or Italy or England, but not france. So mission successful in thats one less American going to visit frogland.

Why? ? The whole topic of this with regards to french, along with their BS political crap....which brings up.... the only and ONLY REASON the frenchies helped out in the Revolutionary War is:

1) $$$$$
2) Britain was the enemy, had it been some other country, there probably would have been no assistance $$$ or otherwise.

frenchies are like tree huggers they want to live in their own little fantasy land, so I say let them.