Ah yes. Thanks. I keep trying to apply rationality to the stock market.
It is extremely rational behavior. Think of it like playing a poker hand. You have imperfect information so you make your bets based on the likelihoods of various results. Some results are more likely that others and you play accordingly. As more information becomes available your betting strategy may change. That is exactly what is happening here.
One has to understand what is driving prices for the stock market to make any sense. Information about company performance is at the core but it is NOT what drives prices. There is no direct link between a company's financial performance and their stock price. What drives prices is peoples expectations and in some cases people's expectations about other people's expectations. (and even expectations about expectations about expectations... you can keep going) If you invest in the stock market you are placing a bet not so much on what a company will do but on what other people will think about the company. When you buy IBM stock you are saying in essence "I expect more people to find this valuable in the future". Any secondary market (stocks, baseball cards, tulips, real estate, etc) works this way. It's shockingly rational (with some exceptions) but highly chaotic and thus hard to predict.
Oddly, Myriad Genetics stock actually rose on that information.
That's not really surprising. All that means is that the market expected the news to be worse than it actually was. Once the ruling was handed down and the uncertainty removed, the stock rebounds based on the new information. You'll see this all the time where a company has a terrible quarter and their stock price goes up because while it was indeed terrible, it wasn't as terrible as expected.
Based on what evidence? Where is your data? Faster != More reliable. Spindle based hard drives are (usually) quite reliable and there is plenty of real world usage data documenting exactly how reliable they are. Companies with big data centers like Google have extremely detailed reliability performance figures. SSDs have a lot of advantages but they only recently have started receiving wide distribution and to date they have poor market penetration in data centers where it is easiest to measure their reliability in the real world. Manufacturers estimates of reliability don't mean much in the real world since they have an obvious conflict of interest.
I have little doubt that SSDs will over time replace spinning platters in most places but claims regarding their reliability in relation to spinning platters is somewhat premature, especially in a data center environment. I wouldn't be the least bit shocked to find out they were more reliable (having no moving parts helps a lot) but just because they should be doesn't mean they will be.
But what if their work is not realistically worth even the minimum wage to the employer?
If it isn't worth even minimum wage then it probably isn't very important is it? Recognize the internship for what it is supposed to be which is an educational opportunity. An internship isn't supposed to be a way for companies to skirt minimum wage laws and get free labor.
If you have to pay interns like regular employees, what's the point of hiring interns?
I don't know, maybe to educate them? What a concept!
Interns aren't supposed to be doing the work of regular employees. If they are doing the work of regular employees then they ARE regular employees and should be paid as such. An internship isn't supposed to be a loophole to acquire free labor.
Fair question and a good one to ask. My point is largely that creativity comes in many forms.
Just off hand I'd suggest various art related options which are plentiful. Photography, painting, etc. Crafts. There also is a lot of creativity in certain games (I'm not an avid gamer so I don't have any good suggestions). Lego Mindstorms is working on some tablet stuff as well as the already existing PC options. How about recording a podcast or using a tablet to help create music? Don't underestimate the creativity in social media. Even discussions like the one we're having are a form of creativity and a good way to learn to write and interact.
Clever as they may be, tablets etc are never going to be as universally useful as a full desktop PC - that's why when you go into any office or workspace you will find PCs sitting on the desks.
Not as "universally useful"? Rubbish. If anything it is the other way around since a tablet is portable and a traditional desktop PC is not - even a laptop is not especially portable compared with a tablet. Not everyone sits at a desk for their job. A gigantic portion of the workforce in fact. Tablets are already beginning to be used by many of the people who don't spend 8 hours a day sitting down in front of a desk.
Realistically there is no fundamental difference between a tablet and a desktop PC. They are the exact same type of device capable of running functionally identical software. A desktop PC is optimized for certain tasks (at present) and a tablet is optimized for others but underneath there is little difference between them. Put a touch screen and some software to use it on a PC and you effectively have the same device as a tablet. Android can already use a keyboard and I think a mouse if desired. Windows 8 is a clumsy effort to merge the two. We turn the speed down on the processor in a tablet to conserve power and reduce heat but that just means you are tuning it for a particular use. You could easily make a tablet just as fast as any desktop PC - with the crappy battery life and high heat to match. We don't for obvious reasons but it isn't because they are somehow irreconcilably different.
I have yet to meet anyone who can sincerely say that he gets some real work(TM) done with a tablet or phone.
My wife office is a medical office and they use tablets to manage everything about patient interactions. Hugely useful. I use my smartphone heavily for managing customer interactions, documenting work instruction (especially pictures), conducting time studies, managing documents and more. A lot of the sales reps I work with use iPads with a bluetooth keyboard and some custom applications to do their work when in our office. It's all "real work" and all an improvement over a PC for the purposes we use it for.
That's not to say PCs aren't hugely useful too. We certainly do for the things they are good at. It' pretty annoying to try to lug a PC of any description out onto the shop floor of my plant and do anything useful with it. I certainly need a keyboard for a lot of what I do. PCs and laptops are really only useful if you are stationed at a desk. That description doesn't fit a huge percentage of the work force.
Yes, but I'm also saddened for a generation of kids who grow up interacting w/ computers to only consume media, not to create.
If you think they aren't creating you aren't looking hard enough. Just because not all of them are coding doesn't mean they aren't creating. Many of them are hugely creative and not in ways you or I would expect.
Plus what is available now is a HUGE improvement in interactivity over what was available when I was young which was just a television with a handful of channels. One way mass media is far less interactive in every meaningful way.
Sorry, but tablets are clearly distinct from PCs, they are manufactured mostly by other companies, run different software and so on.
Tablets are different but the differences are mostly superficial. The only really meaningful difference is in the software which has been tuned for how each is typically used. The underlying hardware is fundamentally the same - both have CPUs, RAM, storage, graphics processors, etc. You could trivially turn a tablet into a PC or vice-versa. There is nothing limiting Android from running on what we normally call a PC and Windows can be made to run on a tablet if desired. They are barely more different than a Mac is from a PC. Tablets and PCs are both general purpose computers and can be programmed to do the same things and even run the same software.
Furthermore the two types of devices are converging. Apple, Google and Microsoft are gradually merging the touch and mouse/keyboard interfaces with Microsoft seemingly being the most aggressive in doing so. I think if a few years you'll see a large portion of laptops replaced by tablets with some form of keyboard option. There is no reason Android or IOS cannot work with a spreadsheet just as easily as Windows or OSX. We just haven't done it yet due to present day technological limitations. Many of those will fade away in time.
Oh, and the fact that different companies might assemble the product is irrelevant to the discussion. PC makers use a variety of manufacturers too. Who made it is not the relevant bit - *what* is made is the bit that matters.
A "proper computer"? A tablet or a smartphone or even a pocket calculator are proper computers. They are all general purpose computers with a CPU, RAM and storage. I agree with your premise that the market segmentation matters between tablets and PCs but they are both "proper computers" by any reasonable definition. The only real difference between them is the software that determines the interface. You could easily take the tablet and put a mouse and keyboard on it just like you could take a PC and put a touchscreen on it. The segments matter because they are optimized for particular uses right now but the segments are going to converge over time. The line between a tablet and a PC is going to blur and Google, Apple and Microsoft have already started the process.
Why not import a Twike? Or buy one from Neiman Marcus?
Because it has the same failings - limited utility and poor performance in pursuit of fuel economy. And anything you buy from Needless Markup is going to be outrageously expensive. Plus saying the name "Twike" makes you sound like Elmer Fudd.
It's at least better looking than the Aptera.
Even if I agreed with you (and I don't - the Twike is hideous) that is like saying your boat leaks less than it used to. They're both really quite unattractive.
Why carry 1.5 tons of steel and plastic with you, if all you really want to move is yourself?
Because much of the time I don't move just myself and spending an extra $30,000 for the occasions when I do is a rather poor economic choice. I could accomplish much of the same result just by buying a (much cheaper) motorcycle or scooter. Furthermore where I live this thing would be pretty much useless between the months of December and April due to the weather. My pickup truck however is useful year round for any reasonable use I have even if it isn't ideal from a fuel economy standpoint.
Now, word comes that a new company may be manufacturing and selling Apteras as soon as next year."
And be out of business the following week. Seriously, I can't really see these things selling in any meaningful quantity. Certainly not enough to keep this company as a going concern. They're weird looking and impractical. Some might like the aesthetics but most won't. (Personally I think it's pretty ugly) Few people could use one as a primary vehicle which puts it into the expensive toy category. It apparently is fuel efficient which is great but it seems to have made a LOT of compromises in other areas to get there. Basically it seems to have sacrificed everything on the altar of fuel economy.
If the tour makes a good enough impression to land an extra big contract, one.
Not a marketing guy are you? If you want to impress someone this is a really poor way to do it. If I'm the one considering spending millions of dollars my very first question is going to be, "why are you spending tens of thousands of dollars on a frivolous robot?" With the implication that if you are willing to waste money on this, what else are you willing to waste money on?
I work at a financial services firm whose clients are the ones making those multi-million-dollar deals. Yes, they care about doing things themselves, having those little annoyances stripped away, and just getting business done without wasting time giving trivial orders. There are a few old rich folks who want others to do the work for them, but mostly the people who are still making big deals want to be a part of those deals, not be led around on a leash.
Which is why they put their own eyes on what they are investing in. I think you are assuming things you have no direct experience with. You may work at a financial services company but I've worked in finance. I've negotiated multi-million dollar contracts for products. I quote jobs with total values in the millions at least twice a month and I'm usually involved in the sales calls too. I've got years of direct dealings with purchasing agents, upper management, venture capitalists, M&A financiers and lawyers, bankers and entrepreneurs who make the sort of investments you are talking about. I have NEVER seen any situation where a robot like this would have even remotely improved the chances of getting a contract. The ONLY case where doing something like this might make sense is if you are a robotics company selling a robot and you are using it as a technology demonstrator. For my company, it would be criminally wasteful as well as pointless.
Alright, Mr. Accountant. Please close the payroll book and look at the marketing budget, instead. Under the "investment" section, note the amount spent on accommodating tours, including coffee, lobby maintenance, distributed sales literature, and the insurance policy for letting visitors poke around the facility. Now look at the ROI for those, and go ask your sales team if a robot would help their presentation
Well, since I manage a sales team let me clue you in. Those items are a rounding error compared to the cost of a robot. Especially a robot for which there is no compelling need and which would see at best occasional use. You are seriously comparing a capital expense that will cost tens of thousands of dollar to the cost of a few brochures, some coffee and maybe a plane ticket? The circumstances under which a robot like that would be a sensible investment are so rare as to be effectively non-existent.
Look, I get that the technology is pretty neat and as a basic research platform some useful stuff might come out of it. That doesn't mean that there is a good business case for doing it to conduct plant tours. This is the robotic equivalent of a Segway. Kinda cool in a geeky sort of way but doesn't really solve a problem anyone actually has better than existing solutions and is absurdly expensive. Great as a technology demonstrator but useless and even financially irresponsible as an actual product.
You are clearly on a popular strategy here: "We do not need telephones, because we have messenger boys" - a British Government - presumably some time in late 1800's.
Your argument depends upon a false equivalency. The basic technology to do the functions of remote presence has been in existence and in use for quite some time now. Telephones permitted vastly improved communication over what was available at the time.
I've been in literally hundreds of manufacturing facilities worldwide and precisely zero of them would allow a self guided device like this loose in their plant. Aside from being stupidly expensive and redundant and solving a problem no one has, they have safety problems, training problems, and require maintenance. In a conference room, a large screen provides a better interface. In a plant, you can accomplish the same result for FAR less money with a smartphone and a friendly guide. If someone really needs to look around carefully, they'll either come themselves or send a representative.
While it may be amusing to think that executives are willing to shout and wait for someone to follow their orders, people don't work that way.
Yeah, actually they do. And it doesn't have to be executives doing the shouting either. If you are doing a teleconference where a walkabout is necessary, it's not remotely difficult to get someone to point a camera at the things someone at the other end of the cable wants to look at. I'd be happy to tote around a camera to show off my manufacturing plant to someone remotely should the need ever arise. Not a big deal at all.
Eventually, yeah... but the first few facility tours don't need to actually involve a physical presence.
Do you have the foggiest idea how many facility tours you would have to do to justify one of these things even if the technology provided some advantage? (and it doesn't provide any advantage) I am an accountant so let me make it simple for you. There is NO company that could possibly economically justify one of these for the purpose of conducting tours. Even if you paid someone $50/hour (which would be absurd) you'd have to use the thing for several hundred hours to just break even. It makes no economic sense whatsoever.
This is a geeky, because-I-can sort of technology with very narrow, if any, application in the real world.
The problems with someone carrying a smartphone are that the view will wobble, the carrier is in control of the movement, the speakerphone may not be sufficiently clear, and the phone itself is too small to be easily recognized as a person.
So mount it to a cart, shout instructions through it, get a better speakerphone and recognize the fact that a robot is not a person. I give facetime tours to family members all the time. It's not perfect but it's fine and having a robot would not actually make the tour better, particularly if there were stairs involved.
For a multi-million-dollar contract hinging on the tour of a facility
If it is a multi-million $ contract you're not going to do that through a remote robot in the real world. You are going yourself or you are sending a trusted agent on your behalf.
Because a person carrying around a phones time is free.
I can pay someone to carry around a phone for a LOOOOONG time before I could justify paying for a robot to do the same thing. The accounting is pretty easy here. Multi-thousand dollar robot + service staff or cheap intern + smartphone. Not exactly a tough call to make if you care about not wasting money.
Acting as he did is exactly the right thing to do when the 'system' has been hacked to prevent it from working. While he should be given a medal (and asylum/witness protection), turning himself in to for the punishment the Hoover-like criminals think you deserve for exposing them is reasonable? That's a special breed of insanity you have.
First off, calling someone "insane" is a juvenile way to make a point. Grow up. Second off you need to actually read what I wrote. Whether what he did is right or not has NOTHING to do with whether he will face prosecution. The government WILL attempt to prosecute him because they believe he violated the law which he may very well have done. Releasing information classified as top secret is considered a crime regardless of what kind of information it is. His actions very likely were the right thing to do but that is not incompatible with being against the law as well. It's situations like this where we have an opportunity to correct government malfeasance. It used to be legal to own slaves but that didn't mean it was the right thing to do and a lot of people had to endure some pretty brutal treatment from the government to get that changed.
We may very well owe this gentleman a debt of gratitude but he is likely going to suffer for his actions no matter their justification. What should happen (but won't) is that either he or individuals the NSA (and other branches of government as appropriate) should get punished but not both. I don't really see a case where both parties can be justified in their actions from an ethical point of view. Legally they could both be wrong but probably not morally.
This story already has violations of the 1st, 4th, 9th and 10th amendments. Are you this apathetic even now? Really?
Wow, so innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply here? Look, I STRONGLY believe that the NSA was likely violating at minimum our 4th amendment rights but this is a big mess and the only thing I'm certain of is that I don't know all the details yet and neither do you. This matter will take years to settle and a knee jerk reaction based on the limited (though seemingly damning) facts we have so far serves little purpose.
It is the powers of government that are limited under US Law.
That doesn't change the fact that there is no enumerated right to privacy in the Constitution nor is there an explicit prohibition against violation of such either - at least not directly. There are some limitations put on the government but they are hardly all encompassing when it comes to privacy issues. There is not even a coherent definition of the term privacy as it relates to our laws. What we have is a patchwork of various laws, findings and traditions which make up what we somewhat inaccurately call our "right to privacy". Unfortunately from time to time our government seems to feel it necessary to test the limits of its authority and we get problems like this NSA dragnet.
The robot, known as Ava 500, brings together iRobot's autonomous navigation with Cisco's TelePresence system to enable a remote worker sitting in front of a video collaboration system to meet with colleagues in an office setting or take part in a facility tour."
You could take a facility tour or do a video conference with someone holding a smartphone for a LOT less money.
There are excellent uses for telerobotic systems. This is not one of them. This is a solution looking for a problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah yes. Thanks. I keep trying to apply rationality to the stock market.
It is extremely rational behavior. Think of it like playing a poker hand. You have imperfect information so you make your bets based on the likelihoods of various results. Some results are more likely that others and you play accordingly. As more information becomes available your betting strategy may change. That is exactly what is happening here.
One has to understand what is driving prices for the stock market to make any sense. Information about company performance is at the core but it is NOT what drives prices. There is no direct link between a company's financial performance and their stock price. What drives prices is peoples expectations and in some cases people's expectations about other people's expectations. (and even expectations about expectations about expectations... you can keep going) If you invest in the stock market you are placing a bet not so much on what a company will do but on what other people will think about the company. When you buy IBM stock you are saying in essence "I expect more people to find this valuable in the future". Any secondary market (stocks, baseball cards, tulips, real estate, etc) works this way. It's shockingly rational (with some exceptions) but highly chaotic and thus hard to predict.
I've wanted the ability to tell my iPhone to forget old networks
The iPhone can forget old networks or did you mean something else? To my knowledge it has always had this capability.
Oddly, Myriad Genetics stock actually rose on that information.
That's not really surprising. All that means is that the market expected the news to be worse than it actually was. Once the ruling was handed down and the uncertainty removed, the stock rebounds based on the new information. You'll see this all the time where a company has a terrible quarter and their stock price goes up because while it was indeed terrible, it wasn't as terrible as expected.
In fact, the number of developers earning $200,000 and above is under 10%,
In other news, water is wet.
Was anyone under the delusion that it was ever over 10%?
I trust SSDs more than physical spindles any day.
Based on what evidence? Where is your data? Faster != More reliable. Spindle based hard drives are (usually) quite reliable and there is plenty of real world usage data documenting exactly how reliable they are. Companies with big data centers like Google have extremely detailed reliability performance figures. SSDs have a lot of advantages but they only recently have started receiving wide distribution and to date they have poor market penetration in data centers where it is easiest to measure their reliability in the real world. Manufacturers estimates of reliability don't mean much in the real world since they have an obvious conflict of interest.
I have little doubt that SSDs will over time replace spinning platters in most places but claims regarding their reliability in relation to spinning platters is somewhat premature, especially in a data center environment. I wouldn't be the least bit shocked to find out they were more reliable (having no moving parts helps a lot) but just because they should be doesn't mean they will be.
But what if their work is not realistically worth even the minimum wage to the employer?
If it isn't worth even minimum wage then it probably isn't very important is it? Recognize the internship for what it is supposed to be which is an educational opportunity. An internship isn't supposed to be a way for companies to skirt minimum wage laws and get free labor.
If you have to pay interns like regular employees, what's the point of hiring interns?
I don't know, maybe to educate them? What a concept!
Interns aren't supposed to be doing the work of regular employees. If they are doing the work of regular employees then they ARE regular employees and should be paid as such. An internship isn't supposed to be a loophole to acquire free labor.
What else should I be looking for then?
Fair question and a good one to ask. My point is largely that creativity comes in many forms.
Just off hand I'd suggest various art related options which are plentiful. Photography, painting, etc. Crafts.
There also is a lot of creativity in certain games (I'm not an avid gamer so I don't have any good suggestions).
Lego Mindstorms is working on some tablet stuff as well as the already existing PC options.
How about recording a podcast or using a tablet to help create music?
Don't underestimate the creativity in social media. Even discussions like the one we're having are a form of creativity and a good way to learn to write and interact.
Just some random thoughts off the top of my head.
Clever as they may be, tablets etc are never going to be as universally useful as a full desktop PC - that's why when you go into any office or workspace you will find PCs sitting on the desks.
Not as "universally useful"? Rubbish. If anything it is the other way around since a tablet is portable and a traditional desktop PC is not - even a laptop is not especially portable compared with a tablet. Not everyone sits at a desk for their job. A gigantic portion of the workforce in fact. Tablets are already beginning to be used by many of the people who don't spend 8 hours a day sitting down in front of a desk.
Realistically there is no fundamental difference between a tablet and a desktop PC. They are the exact same type of device capable of running functionally identical software. A desktop PC is optimized for certain tasks (at present) and a tablet is optimized for others but underneath there is little difference between them. Put a touch screen and some software to use it on a PC and you effectively have the same device as a tablet. Android can already use a keyboard and I think a mouse if desired. Windows 8 is a clumsy effort to merge the two. We turn the speed down on the processor in a tablet to conserve power and reduce heat but that just means you are tuning it for a particular use. You could easily make a tablet just as fast as any desktop PC - with the crappy battery life and high heat to match. We don't for obvious reasons but it isn't because they are somehow irreconcilably different.
I have yet to meet anyone who can sincerely say that he gets some real work(TM) done with a tablet or phone.
My wife office is a medical office and they use tablets to manage everything about patient interactions. Hugely useful. I use my smartphone heavily for managing customer interactions, documenting work instruction (especially pictures), conducting time studies, managing documents and more. A lot of the sales reps I work with use iPads with a bluetooth keyboard and some custom applications to do their work when in our office. It's all "real work" and all an improvement over a PC for the purposes we use it for.
That's not to say PCs aren't hugely useful too. We certainly do for the things they are good at. It' pretty annoying to try to lug a PC of any description out onto the shop floor of my plant and do anything useful with it. I certainly need a keyboard for a lot of what I do. PCs and laptops are really only useful if you are stationed at a desk. That description doesn't fit a huge percentage of the work force.
Yes, but I'm also saddened for a generation of kids who grow up interacting w/ computers to only consume media, not to create.
If you think they aren't creating you aren't looking hard enough. Just because not all of them are coding doesn't mean they aren't creating. Many of them are hugely creative and not in ways you or I would expect.
Plus what is available now is a HUGE improvement in interactivity over what was available when I was young which was just a television with a handful of channels. One way mass media is far less interactive in every meaningful way.
Sorry, but tablets are clearly distinct from PCs, they are manufactured mostly by other companies, run different software and so on.
Tablets are different but the differences are mostly superficial. The only really meaningful difference is in the software which has been tuned for how each is typically used. The underlying hardware is fundamentally the same - both have CPUs, RAM, storage, graphics processors, etc. You could trivially turn a tablet into a PC or vice-versa. There is nothing limiting Android from running on what we normally call a PC and Windows can be made to run on a tablet if desired. They are barely more different than a Mac is from a PC. Tablets and PCs are both general purpose computers and can be programmed to do the same things and even run the same software.
Furthermore the two types of devices are converging. Apple, Google and Microsoft are gradually merging the touch and mouse/keyboard interfaces with Microsoft seemingly being the most aggressive in doing so. I think if a few years you'll see a large portion of laptops replaced by tablets with some form of keyboard option. There is no reason Android or IOS cannot work with a spreadsheet just as easily as Windows or OSX. We just haven't done it yet due to present day technological limitations. Many of those will fade away in time.
Oh, and the fact that different companies might assemble the product is irrelevant to the discussion. PC makers use a variety of manufacturers too. Who made it is not the relevant bit - *what* is made is the bit that matters.
A PC is a proper computer
A "proper computer"? A tablet or a smartphone or even a pocket calculator are proper computers. They are all general purpose computers with a CPU, RAM and storage. I agree with your premise that the market segmentation matters between tablets and PCs but they are both "proper computers" by any reasonable definition. The only real difference between them is the software that determines the interface. You could easily take the tablet and put a mouse and keyboard on it just like you could take a PC and put a touchscreen on it. The segments matter because they are optimized for particular uses right now but the segments are going to converge over time. The line between a tablet and a PC is going to blur and Google, Apple and Microsoft have already started the process.
Why not import a Twike? Or buy one from Neiman Marcus?
Because it has the same failings - limited utility and poor performance in pursuit of fuel economy. And anything you buy from Needless Markup is going to be outrageously expensive. Plus saying the name "Twike" makes you sound like Elmer Fudd.
It's at least better looking than the Aptera.
Even if I agreed with you (and I don't - the Twike is hideous) that is like saying your boat leaks less than it used to. They're both really quite unattractive.
Why carry 1.5 tons of steel and plastic with you, if all you really want to move is yourself?
Because much of the time I don't move just myself and spending an extra $30,000 for the occasions when I do is a rather poor economic choice. I could accomplish much of the same result just by buying a (much cheaper) motorcycle or scooter. Furthermore where I live this thing would be pretty much useless between the months of December and April due to the weather. My pickup truck however is useful year round for any reasonable use I have even if it isn't ideal from a fuel economy standpoint.
Now, word comes that a new company may be manufacturing and selling Apteras as soon as next year."
And be out of business the following week. Seriously, I can't really see these things selling in any meaningful quantity. Certainly not enough to keep this company as a going concern. They're weird looking and impractical. Some might like the aesthetics but most won't. (Personally I think it's pretty ugly) Few people could use one as a primary vehicle which puts it into the expensive toy category. It apparently is fuel efficient which is great but it seems to have made a LOT of compromises in other areas to get there. Basically it seems to have sacrificed everything on the altar of fuel economy.
If the tour makes a good enough impression to land an extra big contract, one.
Not a marketing guy are you? If you want to impress someone this is a really poor way to do it. If I'm the one considering spending millions of dollars my very first question is going to be, "why are you spending tens of thousands of dollars on a frivolous robot?" With the implication that if you are willing to waste money on this, what else are you willing to waste money on?
I work at a financial services firm whose clients are the ones making those multi-million-dollar deals. Yes, they care about doing things themselves, having those little annoyances stripped away, and just getting business done without wasting time giving trivial orders. There are a few old rich folks who want others to do the work for them, but mostly the people who are still making big deals want to be a part of those deals, not be led around on a leash.
Which is why they put their own eyes on what they are investing in. I think you are assuming things you have no direct experience with. You may work at a financial services company but I've worked in finance. I've negotiated multi-million dollar contracts for products. I quote jobs with total values in the millions at least twice a month and I'm usually involved in the sales calls too. I've got years of direct dealings with purchasing agents, upper management, venture capitalists, M&A financiers and lawyers, bankers and entrepreneurs who make the sort of investments you are talking about. I have NEVER seen any situation where a robot like this would have even remotely improved the chances of getting a contract. The ONLY case where doing something like this might make sense is if you are a robotics company selling a robot and you are using it as a technology demonstrator. For my company, it would be criminally wasteful as well as pointless.
Alright, Mr. Accountant. Please close the payroll book and look at the marketing budget, instead. Under the "investment" section, note the amount spent on accommodating tours, including coffee, lobby maintenance, distributed sales literature, and the insurance policy for letting visitors poke around the facility. Now look at the ROI for those, and go ask your sales team if a robot would help their presentation
Well, since I manage a sales team let me clue you in. Those items are a rounding error compared to the cost of a robot. Especially a robot for which there is no compelling need and which would see at best occasional use. You are seriously comparing a capital expense that will cost tens of thousands of dollar to the cost of a few brochures, some coffee and maybe a plane ticket? The circumstances under which a robot like that would be a sensible investment are so rare as to be effectively non-existent.
Look, I get that the technology is pretty neat and as a basic research platform some useful stuff might come out of it. That doesn't mean that there is a good business case for doing it to conduct plant tours. This is the robotic equivalent of a Segway. Kinda cool in a geeky sort of way but doesn't really solve a problem anyone actually has better than existing solutions and is absurdly expensive. Great as a technology demonstrator but useless and even financially irresponsible as an actual product.
You are clearly on a popular strategy here:
"We do not need telephones, because we have messenger boys" - a British Government - presumably some time in late 1800's.
Your argument depends upon a false equivalency. The basic technology to do the functions of remote presence has been in existence and in use for quite some time now. Telephones permitted vastly improved communication over what was available at the time.
I've been in literally hundreds of manufacturing facilities worldwide and precisely zero of them would allow a self guided device like this loose in their plant. Aside from being stupidly expensive and redundant and solving a problem no one has, they have safety problems, training problems, and require maintenance. In a conference room, a large screen provides a better interface. In a plant, you can accomplish the same result for FAR less money with a smartphone and a friendly guide. If someone really needs to look around carefully, they'll either come themselves or send a representative.
While it may be amusing to think that executives are willing to shout and wait for someone to follow their orders, people don't work that way.
Yeah, actually they do. And it doesn't have to be executives doing the shouting either. If you are doing a teleconference where a walkabout is necessary, it's not remotely difficult to get someone to point a camera at the things someone at the other end of the cable wants to look at. I'd be happy to tote around a camera to show off my manufacturing plant to someone remotely should the need ever arise. Not a big deal at all.
Eventually, yeah... but the first few facility tours don't need to actually involve a physical presence.
Do you have the foggiest idea how many facility tours you would have to do to justify one of these things even if the technology provided some advantage? (and it doesn't provide any advantage) I am an accountant so let me make it simple for you. There is NO company that could possibly economically justify one of these for the purpose of conducting tours. Even if you paid someone $50/hour (which would be absurd) you'd have to use the thing for several hundred hours to just break even. It makes no economic sense whatsoever.
This is a geeky, because-I-can sort of technology with very narrow, if any, application in the real world.
The problems with someone carrying a smartphone are that the view will wobble, the carrier is in control of the movement, the speakerphone may not be sufficiently clear, and the phone itself is too small to be easily recognized as a person.
So mount it to a cart, shout instructions through it, get a better speakerphone and recognize the fact that a robot is not a person. I give facetime tours to family members all the time. It's not perfect but it's fine and having a robot would not actually make the tour better, particularly if there were stairs involved.
For a multi-million-dollar contract hinging on the tour of a facility
If it is a multi-million $ contract you're not going to do that through a remote robot in the real world. You are going yourself or you are sending a trusted agent on your behalf.
It needs a robot arm. So that I can buy my Mountain Dew and Hot Pockets at the grocery store without ever leaving my house.
There is a neat invention for that that already exists. It's called a friend. Try one out sometime.
(I kid, I kid...)
Because a person carrying around a phones time is free.
I can pay someone to carry around a phone for a LOOOOONG time before I could justify paying for a robot to do the same thing. The accounting is pretty easy here. Multi-thousand dollar robot + service staff or cheap intern + smartphone. Not exactly a tough call to make if you care about not wasting money.
Acting as he did is exactly the right thing to do when the 'system' has been hacked to prevent it from working. While he should be given a medal (and asylum/witness protection), turning himself in to for the punishment the Hoover-like criminals think you deserve for exposing them is reasonable? That's a special breed of insanity you have.
First off, calling someone "insane" is a juvenile way to make a point. Grow up. Second off you need to actually read what I wrote. Whether what he did is right or not has NOTHING to do with whether he will face prosecution. The government WILL attempt to prosecute him because they believe he violated the law which he may very well have done. Releasing information classified as top secret is considered a crime regardless of what kind of information it is. His actions very likely were the right thing to do but that is not incompatible with being against the law as well. It's situations like this where we have an opportunity to correct government malfeasance. It used to be legal to own slaves but that didn't mean it was the right thing to do and a lot of people had to endure some pretty brutal treatment from the government to get that changed.
We may very well owe this gentleman a debt of gratitude but he is likely going to suffer for his actions no matter their justification. What should happen (but won't) is that either he or individuals the NSA (and other branches of government as appropriate) should get punished but not both. I don't really see a case where both parties can be justified in their actions from an ethical point of view. Legally they could both be wrong but probably not morally.
This story already has violations of the 1st, 4th, 9th and 10th amendments. Are you this apathetic even now? Really?
Wow, so innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply here? Look, I STRONGLY believe that the NSA was likely violating at minimum our 4th amendment rights but this is a big mess and the only thing I'm certain of is that I don't know all the details yet and neither do you. This matter will take years to settle and a knee jerk reaction based on the limited (though seemingly damning) facts we have so far serves little purpose.
It is the powers of government that are limited under US Law.
That doesn't change the fact that there is no enumerated right to privacy in the Constitution nor is there an explicit prohibition against violation of such either - at least not directly. There are some limitations put on the government but they are hardly all encompassing when it comes to privacy issues. There is not even a coherent definition of the term privacy as it relates to our laws. What we have is a patchwork of various laws, findings and traditions which make up what we somewhat inaccurately call our "right to privacy". Unfortunately from time to time our government seems to feel it necessary to test the limits of its authority and we get problems like this NSA dragnet.
The robot, known as Ava 500, brings together iRobot's autonomous navigation with Cisco's TelePresence system to enable a remote worker sitting in front of a video collaboration system to meet with colleagues in an office setting or take part in a facility tour."
You could take a facility tour or do a video conference with someone holding a smartphone for a LOT less money.
There are excellent uses for telerobotic systems. This is not one of them. This is a solution looking for a problem.