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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."
speed: 1.5 meters/sec = 3.3554 mph = 5.4 km/h
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
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.
Good people go to bed earlier.