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The Geek Toy Vacuum Cleaner
TheDarkpoint sent us a new device sure to be on all neat-nik geek Christmas lists. It's an automatic vacuum cleaner. Cool little device and the polite gift for those who just aren't quite up to clean-snuff.
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I'd say this is a cheap rip-off of the robotic lawnmower.....
Apathy -- The state of numbness of the mind. When you are apathic, you can think.
How about holiday wish list? not everyone here is Christian.....
Now we just need to modify it to
a) automatically return to a charging station when its batteries get low
b) empty itself when it fills with dirt
That's about the only way I'll ever keep my carpet clean all the time
'I ain't a liar, baby, and I ain't proud I just want what I'm not allowed.' -- Violent Femmes, 36-24-36
Wow... never saw that coming...
Do we really want everything hooked up to the internet? At school, for our senior engineering project many people are doing internet technologies where they connect applicances to the internet. Nothing here is really innovative. It mostly consists of them arranging sensors of some sort on the device and then using a laptop to monitor it. Of course they try to use wireless technology - cell phone modem, or wireless lan to get it to a central computer that is hooked to the internet.
I'm sure someone is going to hook a toilet to the internet sometime soon...then it will run linux, of course, and count how many flushes, and how big the 'load' is....
Heh. The guys I watch Monday Night Football (and pro wrestling with) could certainly benefit from this. I wonder if they'll come up with a unit that'll take out their trash as well.
I met the inventor, James Dyson, earlier this year; he's quite a cult figure in the UK having re-invented the vacumn cleaner (by removing the bag, and using an internal vortex for suction.)
anyhow, he's a major engineering guy, and is trying to spearhead a movement to bring engineering and design back into schools.
he's a top man...check out here
It seems that they have applied for a patent on the spiral as a form that covers a rectangle. (See http://dc06.dyson.com/solution2.htm.
Sad.
Does anybody know what comouters and OS it uses? :-9
Hi!
Will it pick up my computer cables off the floor and vacuum under them? ...or is it just going to eat them?
If my room is typical of the geek room, the thing better be all terrain!!
(Side note: would a better geek gift be Lego Mindstorms so we can create our very own intelligent, robotic vacuum cleaner?)
Dana
Scope it out... they have a patent pending on their "spiral cleaning path." Sorry dudes, but I think this is yet another stupid patent idea. Patently obvious and been done before.
There is probably no doubt that it is "the first ... microprocessor-driven ... motor to be installed in a domestic vacuum cleaner", but does anybody have a clue to how these new "SR" motors are supposed to work? Couldn't find anything on the web site.
Hi!
I didn't read everypage of the website because the thing is kinda slow loading, being slashdotted and all, but what about vacuuming under couches and tables and stuff? It seems to me this is limited to wide open relatively uncluttered spaces, besides am I the only one that things us humans need to quit finding ways to sit on our kiesters all day and let machines do the work for us? I mean vacuuming isn't that bad. Unless you have a really big house, but that why you have an upstairs maid and a downstairs maid
Someone else mentioned (the first post actually, imagine that a useful first post) that this was just a rip off of the robotic lawn mower, now there is a good idea, we have 10 acres of land that can be a real pain to mow, by the time you are done it is time to start over again, it would be nice to just have a continous running bot. Of course them cityfied people with a half an acre don't really need it, but considering I've seen some of them with riding lawnmowers they would probably get it anyhow
Oh well, I guess soon we will have devices that breath for us. *sigh*
"A Festivus for the rest of us!!"
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
If it can pick up microwave red baron pizzas that have been ingrained into the floor, determine which of my multitude of mtn. dew cans are full, empty, or "flat", and figure out which printouts I want to save and which ones I want to discard... I won't just buy it, I'll *marry* it.
I'm cleaning impaired (ok, lazy). While this thing might not be able to do anything for some place that's as authentic of a disaster area as my apartment, at least the beginning steps are being tackled. I may live to have that robotic maid yet!
I think it's one of the holy grails of science.
There was no info afaik on the site regarding the price.
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
What is your Slash Rating?
What a brilliant piece of kit!!!
I was a bit disappointed there was no "science bit", though - technologies used like NN's, GA's etc...
I wonder what sort of capacity this thing has? I mean, my front room looks more like a bombsite most Sunday mornings if I have had people over...
Imagine if this really takes off - and they get the cash to invest more development. A cross between an AIBO and a vacuum cleaner!!! Way to go! Moving further down the line - it could "home in" on it's docking station. Add a shampooing module - it totally cleans as it goes...
Incidentally, Dyson use a really smart method of cleaning - some sort of vortex anomaly actually sweeps the dust up. So you have no bag to fill up - the sucking force is maintained at a uniform level no matter how full it is... plus I think it's waterproof... Handy for all those red wine spills!
IIRC, Dyson is one of those eccentric garden-shed type inventors who made some cash with the wheelbarrow with a ball for a wheel, and then went on to make the vacuum. Warms the cockles of my heart to see the nerd mantle being taken up where Sir Clive Sinclair left off...
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Let's see... expensive and marginally functional robotic vacuum system versus Luddite-proof central vacuum system, used in houses for 30+ years. Now, an automated whole-house cleaning system! That would be something interesting! Wait, no, they already did that... it's called maid service. Sigh. Nice ideas, but not really all that useful.
Avery
Editor, ScowlZine
Avery
Editor, ScowlZine
"A quarter-pound of hostility and a pickle spear on the side"
I mean... if you don't have carpet, will this thing just blow hot air?
Seriously, I'm not _this_ lazy. I can get up and vacuum myself.
I saw a similar device demonstrated on Japanese TV the other day, except that it could automatically return to its charging station when it was finished vacuuming.
How about a solar lawn mower instead? I saw one of these in action a couple of years ago. They're pretty cool, they use buried wire to mark the border of the yard, and they just roam freely, constantly cutting grass. And they set off an alarm if someone tries to haul it away without punching in a password.
Photos of bits of the past hiding in the present: afiler.com
Will it give Elroy grief about his cleaning habits? Will it talk with an eternally tired voice? Can it wear a French Maid's outfit?
This is just a whole site of silly patent applications.
Arrrrrgh! (I still want one, though :-))
Hi!
Well, so much for my plan of building an automatic vaccum cleaner out of lego mindstorms.
I guess I'll just have to move on to building that automatic lawnmower....
-Denor
The scene... I have left for vacation. I set up crontab entries in a control computer to activate the robot periodically while I'm gone. Little did I know, I had left computer parts scattered around on the floor. Come on guys. Sounds like this item would be a good idea in theory for a geek present. However, considering how many geeks (myself included) have a habit of leaving computers in various states of disassembley all over the place, somehow I doubt it would be a good idea to turn a non-intelligent vacuuming robot loose in a geek's room.
If me and my friends are any indication of the average geek, I fail to see how this will work... They'll have to make one that picks up clothes, computer parts, legos, various cd's, soda bottles, Sobe Bottles............ :-P
Episode IV
A New Troll
It is a period of civil war on slashdot. Striking from a hidden base, the trolls have won their first victory against the evil galactic moderators.
During the battle, troll spies managed to steal secret plans to the moderator's ultimate weapon, the post vacuum, an open sourced virtual vacuum cleaner with an enough power to suck up an entire thread of trolls.
Pursued by the moderator's sinister agents, open source man races to create another off-topic thread to expose the moderator's plans and restore freedom to slashdot...
thank you.
does anybody have a clue to how these new "SR" motors are supposed to work?
SR Motor = Switched Reluctance motor
Let's see here..
Quick search found this site:
http://www.vtt.fi/aut/kau/results/srm/
There's even a few GIF animations to show how it works.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
This site seems to be working for everyone but me, I keep getting DNS errors....WAAAAAAAAAAA I wanna see it! someone mirror it for me, please!
their site is /.ed
Can't you respondents say anything nice about anything? Ya put it on the floor, push "go", and it cleans your floor! (ok, not the pizza boxes & Mt. Dew cans.) It's a applied technology robot, available off-the-shelf now, and does a job that we've been talking about doing for ages. That's cool! You KNOW you want one.
...any eletric lawnmower could ever be. We had two of them outside in Summer an we had that little cave that we just placed everywhere we thought the grass got too high. They dont make no noise, dont need anymore food than your grass, and cut it incredibly the right size. Its amazing, but finally one of them died on cancer and the other one was killed by a fox. Hmmm...I wonder if a sheep could make a better job?
Moderators have to know something about puns...
ROFL
Anybody have any mirrors? Bok bok
If you're considering the acquisition of a robotic domestic servant, first consider this cautionary tale, courtesy of Electric Sheep, a "damn fine" SF webzine from New Zealand.
I can see the fnords!
What do you have when you cross an iguana with a herring?
Dunno but I'm sure it smells like sh*t.
[OFFTOPIC]
Hey! *THIS* is the guy who's been posting all those stupid natalie portman comments as an anonymous coward! The username, the hatred for moderators, the lowercase "thank you" at the bottom, it all fits. We have you now, fool.
JD
Now, it just needs to cook and give head. Then who needs women anymore?
the Honeymoon Extention Pack!
This sig is false.
It's great that they have a vacuum that'll clean your floors, but you still have to empty the damn bag out!
Check the name:
opensourceman
He wants you to get him.
This sig is false.
I own a Dyson vacuum cleaner (DC03) and it does a wonderful job.
Dyson has really shaken up the UK manufacturing establishment; and done it in a very engineering-oriented way. All credit to him.
Its easy to get carried away when we hear about so many really stupid patents, but Dyson risked an awful lot to build his company; it got its start from his exploitation of the Dual Cyclone technique.
Perhaps we should make a distinction between software patents (stupid), biotech (dangerous) and the more traditional physical invention types that have (generally) served us very well.
C-x C-s
Imagine the amount of carpet you could clean with a Beowulf cluster of these...
Maybe attach the mindstorms controller to press the controls? Then a cron job to have it come out once a week? Jetson's here we come!
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
It has nothing to do with Christianity.
This sig is false.
as evidinced by the hunting/seaching patterns of the wily lynx as well as the bloodhound.
This patent will lose if contested, not just on the preexisting art clause, but also on the obvious nature of the innovation, as tying/attaching a Hoover to said lynx is the next natural evolutionary step.
Why does the thought of my vacuum cleaner feeling "distressed or threatened" amuse me?
It would stick out like a sore thumb in my turn-of-the-century house. Lotsa wood and a roaming yellow/grey plastic thing.
These things seem about perfect for commercial cleaning applications.(No steps, no stairs, vast open areas) Instead of paying three guys minimum wage and getting spotty results, buy four of these things. Even if they are US $4000, you'd make back your initial investment in five months!!
I wonder if they'd take care of the staple collection I have under my desk?
.sig: Now legally binding!
Amen.
Possibly worse is the fact that on the same page they say they've got a patent pending on the idea of a light which changes color to indicate the robot's operating mode.
Maybe this is only ludicrous to me because I've dabbled in robotics, but think about it... You have software which runs in one of a few modes and runs on a machine with no output. So, you hook up a mode indicator. It's for debugging, not for indicating any sort of emotion. Come on - navigating around a chair is a mood?
I figure it started out as a debugging tool and some marketing moron thought it was cool... "No, no... not a mode indicator... a MOOD indicator!"
/* The beatings will continue until morale improves. */
They work not by the traditional method of producing an electromagnetic force by passing electrons through a coiled wire, but by the revolutionary technology of harnesing non-motile electrons, or NMEs, which are lying dormant in the wire.
This produces a much longer time-to-failiure because there are no motive parts to get in the way of the motor. Nearly 0 friction = nearly 0 wear & tear.
The lower carbon emissions claim is dubious--suffice to say critics of SR studies reveal that it's similar to the early 90s claim that oatmeal lowers your cholesterol, but debunkers showed that their studies relied on you eating oatmeal and not egg yolks for breakfast.
For more information on this subject, see here
I am a professional drug smuggler and would not want my product to get sucked up by mistake. I seem to be able to keep the place pretty clean with my own nose. Is there a drug smuggling toy vacuum coming out?
Real men dump cores! Read my journal, I am neat.
Christmas is the celebration of Jesus Christ, the messiah of the Christians. it's not a time for everybody. it's not a time where everyone gives gifts. it's a day where Christians are suppose to get remember the birth of Jesus. trying to push Xmas on everybody is a dogmatic trait amongst pseudo-Christians who think everyone should celebrate their holiday. i do not celebrate christimas, because i do not believe Jesus Christ was the messiah. i am still a warm and giving a person, but i am that way, all year around, just not around gift giving time. this "Christmas spirit" she be kept among the Christans, cause it's their holiday. i do not a tree and a fat man in a suit to be kind and good person.
it's very nervewracking growing up non christian where evryone thinks the world revolves around their beliefs.
What ever happened to the old standby- a red rider bb gun? Sure a large mass of you might actually shoot your eye out but who cares about one more visually challegened geek? I sure don't.
Real men dump cores! Read my journal, I am neat.
OK let's try that again....
hmmm, isn't this the predecessor to the novel "The Doorway into Summer" by Robert A. Heinlen...
What's next... cryo-engineering so we can all sleep to the year 2003?... oh yeah he wrote that a long time ago, the protagonist slept from 1973 to 2003, after creating "household hannah" (I forgot the real name) an automated vacuum cleaner/housemaid, then went into suspended animation to come back in the future to harass some shady business partners
oh well, moderate this one down to oblivion, for it IS kinda offtopic.. sorry folks
-- Life: Hate the Game... Love the cereal
I have helped several electronic startups get there products going. The fact that the Dyson product doesn't look like a prototype is evidence of a great deal of risk and effort, and I cannot help but admire someone with the determination to see it through.
I also agree that for the standard Geek-Lair, it's not yet a useful tool, but these things have to startup and improve. Next year's model will be smarter and more adept. The first version of Linux was not generally useful either. Just damned cool.
Yeah, like those £300 `personal appliances` or whatever they`re called, like the palm pilot etc, which have about the same level of functionality as a pen and paper (£0.50), only with the ever-exciting risk of losing all your phone numbers and schedules when you drop it/battery runs out etc....never understood that. Am i
missing something?
Yes, convenience and efficiency.
You need a lot of pens and paper to hold the amount of information I keep in my Palm Pilot. I keep simple, Excel compatible spreadsheets in mine. This allows me to consolidate a myriad of paper books. I can keep my phonebook, checkbook, notes, memos, novels, calculators, conversion tables, and alarm clocks in a box that is about the size of a stack of 3" by 5" cards.
I can also keep all of my passwords encrypted. Try doing that with a dead tree notepad.
Ever read Slashdot while riding a car or a bus? I have thanks to AvantGo.
I dropped and broke my Palm III a week after I got it. I didn't lose a single phone number or appointment because it syncs with my computer every night.
I originally bought my Palm III for $254.00 American. I recently upgraded to a Visor Deluxe for about the same price. I'm not up on the current exchange rates but I think that's about £170. This is considerably less than what you think they cost and there are cheaper models available. As far as I'm concerned, they are worth every penny.
Does this
Religious orientation has nothing to do with automated vacuum cleaners. Unless... Ah, no. It's too early to be droping the 'cid.
In a normal motor, the intermittent contacts made by the brushes causes very small sparks which (somehow - don't ask me) carbonise stuff. Over time you'd end up with a small pile of black powder. This is presumably the carbon emissions referred to.
{It's 2:40pm EST, and it appears that the /. effect strikes again: I can't get a response from dc06.dyson.com any longer.}
I'm in agreement that this thing isn't going to do well in a typical geek room; even if it can successfully navigate obstacles, that'd leave about %0.2 of my workroom's floorspace sparkling. The rest is covered with parts, printouts, and assorted spelkus.
However, it'd be ideal for the living room.
Curiouser and curiouser...
What the hell is this, the Dark Ages?
People like you issue sweeping condemnations of cow orking and those who practice it, and yet we have the audacity to claim that we live in an "enlightened society." Well, I say bullshit. Bullshit. I've got news for you. This old-timers good-ole-boy attitude towards cow orkers is socially backwards and just plain prejudicial. So what if people do things that you don't particularly agree with? Does that justify this despicable attitude? Huh? I'll ork cows whenever I goddamn feel like it, thank you very much.
Keep the government out of my barnyard, I say. You too.
hehe... the thought of putting it in an enclosed circle and watching it go round and round or simply blinking the "Im in trouble, a kitty is tring to eat me!" LED simply makes me laugh...
BTW - Everyone got the video, it's funny as hell (3.5MB though)
To the fool, he who speaks wisdom will sound foolish. ---Euripides
I wanted one then, and I want one now.
If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. A little outdated technology-wise, but still an excellent story with good engineering, time travel, and a cat. What more could you ask for?
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
You messages doesn't make too much sense, ThAT'S HOW WE KNOW.
(1) How much does it cost?
(2) Does it have the three laws of robotics imprinted into it's logic?
We shall lead the revolution.
I don't know if any of you have watched the avi, because you're gonna have a nice clean room, well that is only the middle of the room. The thingy stops about 30cm before any object. Well it's a nice try, but don't get rid of your girlfirend just know ...
:)
Murphy(c)
Here's the web server's IP: 146.101.248.205
There's no reason for a sig here.
They already exist. In Japan they have toliets which monitor the "contents" and send that info back to a doctor....obviously for patients with certain, ahem, problems.
Aha, a good ol' Google search returned their link: http://www3.electrolux.se/robot/. Apparently, it goes over cables without any trouble. That's impressive.
For other robot vacuums, here's a short list:
I want that Electrolux one, though.
I haven't seen the Dyson one from the article. The site appears to be down hard.
(1) Probably Too Much.
(2) Will I die through the action or inaction of a vacuum cleaner? I could either be smothered by dust puppies, or... eeew. The alternative is too horrible to contemplate.
Here's a link to a similar concept submitted to a design magazine in November. Due to poor frame html, the border isn't included.
Zorba
Now you're just discriminating against all us people who happen to live south of the equator.
At least the ones typically used in vacuum cleaners do. Series motors start fast and spin fast.
And they probly mean ozone, not carbon.
Both. Brush/commutator motors gradually grind up the graphite brushes. The motor is in the exhaust air path (to cool it while keeping dirt out of it), so the graphite dust tends to be blown out into the room unless caught with an additional filter.
There's not enough to re-dirty your rugs. But graphite dust accumulates in lungs and is bad for them.
It's a very small amount of the dirt your lungs are exposed to. But why let them be exposed to any extra crud at all, now that hall-effect sensors are available to replace brushes? It's a nice selling point.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
P.S. The real question is, how can you know I am really a woman? :)
That's easy. You seem to care about women (smart ones anyway). If you were a man, all you would care about is getting one of those robot vacuum cleaners that gives head.
Besides, you say things like:
Robotics cannot make a man feels super smart or super capable. Only a dumb woman can.
Real men already feel super smart and super capable all the time (they also feel super hot-looking, and they know they're best driver in the world). They don't need robots or dumb women to make them feel that way.
OK, take the head off a batery weed wacker, mount it on some lego robotic set up, program it to move around you're yard....hehe. OR modify some AIBO's to look like sheep, put some clipping device on there 'mouth' then you can have robotic shhep constantly keeping your lawn at that perfect height.
Looks like they've been ./ed.
what about an open source floor cleaner dogem@initco.net
/. effect strikes again. Looks like an NT web server so shat can you expect?
Deleted
The website doesn't seem to mention a price. Anyone in the UK know the going rate?
I want the pet avoidance feature to have programable agressiveness. I need something to terrorize my cats while I'm gone.
I also want to know if it comes with a cow catcher feature so it can collect the legos as it goes (no, not from it's predecessor, but the lego mindfield most parents are familiar with)
I think it would be easy enough to modify it into a Van de Graf generator to charge the outer shell. That would solve the external harassment issues 8^)
My housemate bought a dyson because he figures that if it was more fun to do then the house might be cleaner.
Worked for about a week!
You can already buy an autmatic lawnmower. Build a mouse trap out of legos or something...