Slashdot Mirror
Dyson Invests £5 Million To Create 'Intelligent Domestic Robots'
DavidGilbert99 writes "James Dyson only releases products he is 100% happy with, which is why, despite nearly a decade of research in the area, his company has yet to release a robotic vacuum cleaner. To help drive research forward, he will invest £5 million in a joint research lab at Imperial College London which will focus on 'vision systems,' which Dyson hopes will help create the next generation of 'intelligent domestic robots.'" Last week Dyson proposed that the UK government offer monetary incentives to students with an interest and aptitude in science.
User here on both desktop and Android tablet. Will write about the tablet experience, as that is the medium through which I browse Slashdot more often lately.
My stock 1st gen JB Nexus 7 and CM11 HTC Sensation choke when browsing the beta. I'm absolutely baffled by reports that the beta (and the current modern, non-classic site) run smoothly on moderately aged hardware. The experience is in no way seamless; it is utterly painful.
First, there is a delay between my trying to scroll down/up and the scroll actually occurring (said delay is completely nonexistent on the classic site on both devices).
Second, with the dynamic photo loading (why the hell are there photos now?) I hate having my webpage constantly bouncing around up and down when I'm trying to navigate (especially painful when I'm trying to click a link, only for the device to "catch up" and finish fully rendering the page after I have already made the move for my finger to click on the link but before the finger actually touches the screen, causing me to click a different link than intended). This, compounded with the first issue above, take Slashdot well outside the realm of usability. I don't know for sure, but from reading around, this second issue seems to be due to the Javascript, which seemingly almost as many users complaining about are claiming is NOT a problem. What???
My beta experience is characterized by my having to wait an entire 3 seconds (sometimes 4) inbetween EVERY INDIVIDUAL SWIPE to navigate (okay, I don't have to wait quite that long on my N7). Before, I could swipe as fast as my ninja fingers pleased; now, the site REGISTERS MY SWIPES AS CLICKS if I don't wait out the dynamic loading. Sure, the incremental render finishes a lot sooner than that, but then I'm just gambling on whether or not I'm going to run into the usability issues I've just mentioned above if I don't wait out those 3 seconds.
Lastly,
This is a goddamn beaut.
http://imgur.com/HF7H42v
I however understand that maybe in somebody's bizarro world, this would be acceptable (although that person would be absolutely nuts), but how the fuck does a development TEAM allow this to happen?
http://imgur.com/cXt2BQr
I was at an absolute loss for words thinking about this for a few minutes, until what many people here have been droning on about and parroting had finally clicked for me after having to sit through people bitching about the same thing for months. All this time I thought people had been beating a dead horse over a relatively insignificant complaint compared to everything else that was wrong.
It is NOT that they (devs & suits) think the comment system is a less-important, lower-priority aspect of Slashdot; it is that they are UTTERLY IGNORING it. A perception of its inconsequence by the developers sounds plausible, but it looks glaringly more likely that the comment system probably isn't even crossing their minds in the first place. Thus, they are hopelessly blind to the essence of Slashdot. I never realized this, because I couldn't even make it past tolerating the site navigation issues outlined in the first half of my post on my many attempts to test drive the beta until I decided now to actually try to force myself to use it amidst all this "overblown" Slashcott fuss. Maybe my experiences had something to do with this? But then again, people HAVE been bitching about the comments since day one. Skeptically and with a genuine dose of doubt, I had asked myself "it couldn't be THAT bad, much less UNUSABLE, could it?"
bUCKfETA.
That doesn't seem like enough to develop intelligent domestic robots, but it's more than enough to hire an army of Mexicans to do your housework...
Make sure the "domestic" robots wear nice fembot maid gear and have "plenty of suction".
They'll go over big in Japan.
can't do that.
Any monetary incentives has to assure that some asshole in a suit can buy another yacht next quarter. Pure scientific research is right out.
In the meantime, the rest of use in our 600 sq. ft. urban condos made of ersatz materials can easily vacuum the damn place ourselves in 5 minutes. It's not a big deal, it's not a problem that urgently needs solving.
He had one big hit with a bagless vacuum cleaner and he's been dining out on that every since. I'm not convinced he's really the man to usher in the next generation of AI.
Aside from that, from what I've read in interviews he really has next to know knowledge of how normal people think or act since he seems to be of the opinion that everyone will be blissfully happy being put out of work by a robot.
Yes , I know , luddites etc , but you can't always generate new jobs to replace old ones that have succummed to tech - at some point you're going to put a lot of people out of a job and then what?
And don't someone come up with the BS about everyone will sit around in blissful nirvana writing poetry or music or coding or go kayaking all day. It ain't going to happen.
Roombas are expensive enough as it is, I can't imagine what Dyson would want for a robotic vacuum. Thousand bucks?
Sounds like Duke Nukem Forever.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
You mean the Dyson that is good at marketing bullshit making people think that his "innovative" products actually work better than regular products? Dyson that makes cheap Chinese shit flogged off as something really new and cool? That Dyson?
If so, I'm buying it.
He must have sold a dozen vacuums to raise that kind of cash!
...that Dyson only knows how to make things that suck...
"Flesh stripped from their bones, like they were attacked by a super-powerful vacuum."
"Damn. Third one this week."
"Place sure is tidy, though."
We have pets, and have to vacuum a lot And what I've found, in particular, is that small and lightweight vacuums can't begin to cope with it... in my experience, the cartridge needs to be emptied about every 15 minutes for suction to be maintained, so we have to use a full-sized vacuum, with a full-sized bag, which we need to replace about once every 3 to 4 weeks. In light of that, what I'd want in a robotic vacuum is one that can automatically empty its own canister into a larger bin at its charging station whenever the robot's canister is full, such that the larger bin at the recharging station only has to be emptied out maybe every week or so, at most.
It would also be ideal for my situation if it could both a) handle carpet and tile/hardwood with equal efficacy; and b) do stairs, handling all the floors in a multilevel home or loft apartment.
When somebody invents a robotic vacuum that can do that...well...then... insert the shut-up-and-take-my-money gif here.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The basement-dwelling subset of the Slashdot community are praying they just don't make it smart enough to talk about...alternative uses for a vaccuum.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
No to Cylons... we had enough trouble in the Colonies thanks to them..
SCIREV.NET - fanfics,reviews & more
We can argue about the quality of Dyson products all we want, but be assured that all those off-topic beta posts are not losing suction.
Maybe once the boycotters leave we can read /. in peace again.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
There are many things a robot might do for an elderly person - dispense meds, billing records, food prep, Monitoring (is anyone lying on the floor), Music, Blood Glucose tests, Putting on socks, shoes, initialing connections via skype or H.264 to family members, technology assist... where does it stop?
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
er, I think you mean Apple
If anyone is in for a slashcott I propose that we create our own site using the open source slash code, and make it just like the classic slashdot look. I already purchased the domain name slashdice.com kind of fitting I think. Then once dice tanks slashdot by forcing the beta on us we will have somewhere to go.
What do you guys think, anyone with me?
...but I think 4.9 million pounds of that is going to "public relations". Dyson should instead invest a couple hundred thousand in designing a vacuum cleaner that isn't a noisy plastic piece of junk.
Anyone who has had a Rumba and had it run over dog shit when it's out cleaning will totally understand why having an intelligent vacuum cleaner is necessary.
you'd better find all the boycotters then, i'm sure they'd help you until they start whining about what you create..... Good luck, we might come and visit your site and make constructive criticism of it.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
The Neato Signature Pro I got for Christmas (named Sebastian by my manga obsessed daughter) is frankly marvellous - have not hoovered myself since. The future indeed is this way. Dyson will have a job doing better... only some way of climbing stairs (which I cannot even begin to fathom) would improve things dramatically.
Disclaimer: I have absolutely no connection with the Neato guys (even though they clearly are rather neat (in all senses))
I thought it was interesting that the article mentioned that Dyson has never released a robot vacuum, but then failed to note that the company did *announce* a robot vacuum back around 2001, and finally (quietly) decided to cancel it in 2005. That vacuum was called the DC06 - a summary of the letter "announcing" its cancellation can be found here: http://www.robotreviews.com/ch...
Those who say this is an easy problem have clearly never really looked at what it takes to solve it. I have - my original background is robotics, and I worked on (and we abandoned as infeasible) a robotic floor cleaner design back in the late 1980s. Time and tech advances haven't helped much - Like most problems in robotics and AI, the real issues are stubbornly immune to increases in compute power or software technology. In addition, "simply" designing and building reliable robotics hardware is insanely difficult to do well. The very best (and thus very expensive) robots we can build are still finicky, fiddly, and incredibly fragile things that require staggering amounts of maintenance (both preventive and corrective). My friend Dewayne Perry, one of the world's leading experts on software engineering, is right when he says that Artificial Intelligence needs quantum improvements to reach even the level of natural stupidity...
FWIW, I've never seen a robot that doesn't suck, except for the robot "vacuum cleaners" out there.... Nothing makes you appreciate the Intelligent Design of living systems like trying to build a robot that actually really works and is truly adaptive to real world environments!
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last