How To Attend Next Week's Robotics Show Robotically

DeviceGuru writes "Suitable Technologies is offering $50 rentals of its Beam mobile telepresence robot, allowing 50 robotics enthusiasts to remotely attend the RoboBusiness conference in Santa Clara, Calif. on Oct. 23-25. The Ubuntu- and ROS-based Beam will be available to the first 50 applicants, letting them explore the show at up to 1.5 meters/sec and interact with others via video conferencing. The bots will be allowed everywhere on the show floor as well as in conference rooms, and the show will be open late to accommodate remote users from distant time zones. The Beam is a good choice for remotely exploring conferences, saving users the cost and time of traveling to an event, says Suitable Tech; for example, RoboBusiness registration costs $1,595, not including hotel and travel. A list of the conference's keynotes, which include one by Christ Urmson, director of Google's Self-Driving Cars project, is available here."

Comments

speed: 1.5 meters/sec = 3.3554 mph = 5.4 km/h

[Gravis Zero]

speed: 1.5 meters/sec = 3.3554 mph = 5.4 km/h

Re:speed: 1.5 meters/sec = 3.3554 mph = 5.4 km/h

[Anonymous Coward]

speed: 1.5 meters/sec = 3.3554 mph = 5.4 km/h

Thats 5.0 * 10 ^-9 c for those of you who like non arbitrary units.

Re:speed: 1.5 meters/sec = 3.3554 mph = 5.4 km/h

[wonkey_monkey]

I don't know; is it still nitpicking if it's wrong? c can be expressed in m/s, but it can also be expressed in feet per minute or rods per fortnight. A metre is defined in terms of the speed of light (and the length of a second), not the other way around. The speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second, but it is not defined as such. As a physical - as far as we can tell - constant, it can't be defined - it can only be measured.

Re:speed: 1.5 meters/sec = 3.3554 mph = 5.4 km/h

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that would be a 6" man running like the clappers. Perhaps you meant 6'

Windows or Mac Only?!?

[bjwest]

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these companies? They use Free/Open source software and/or hardware to build things, then don't offer the controlling or interactive software to those of us using the same damn OS on our desktops that's used in the thingyMaBob. Get the fuck out of Visual Basic, C# or what ever toy development environment you're using for cross platform, and use a real cross platform library. Qt will do all three platforms, and AFAIK, all it takes is a recompile to get it one of the others. And I'm sure there are other true cross platform libraries out there as well.
What cross platform development library are they using that is so frigging awesome, you have to leave out the Linux's? Fuck, if nothing else, use Java.

the pricepoint is a nice firewall.

[nimbius]

As the cost of technologies like this comes down i can only see several outcomes in the future.

1. robotics show restrooms closed due to denial of service attack by 4chan. robots screaming lady gaga cannot be evicted from the loo.

2. first presentation ruined by six wiseguys who refuse to stop racing their telepresence robots up and down the aisles

3. while everyone else has mastered the robots for some time, the recent uptick in management attendance is now correlated with the recent number of nearly suicidal robots that attempt to go down stairs and into pools.

4. ending the yearly conference means everyone has to return to the rental station, as every good engineer knows. C-level attendees have however been spotted trying to hail cabs and merge onto freeways.

5. although considered polite to use a business-friendly avatar, most attendies have adhered to an unspoken rule of using cats.