It's nice to see DARPA funding some projects with interesting possibilities.
Of course, the goal is to also make the robot able "to safely interact with humans at eye level" (Technology Review) - which I doubt interests the military much...Unless they are curious about how safe it would be around other soldiers with a giant gun strapped to its back.
Though, a gun-toting Doorman Robot would probably make people move through doorways faster. Perhaps the Robot Doorman would also have the ability to shoot terrorist suspects on sight as it scanned the Microsoft brand ID tags that will be implanted in our necks - it would know, after all, if we went to www.burqa-porn.com or http://usgov.IwantToOverthrowIt.org, downloaded a linux OS, etc - instant terrorist flags.
Which gets to the worst part of Windows (any version) the Microsoft philosophy. You don't know what you want to do with your computer, so we will make it easier on you by not allowing you accesss to change any of your own stuff. And of the few things you can access, most of them will be hidden, cloaked, or in some way made very inconvenient to access. In short, we Microsoft, don't trust you with your own computer. That is the biggie for me.
What you list there is actually a major reason why Windows (in all its glory - fault-ridden or not, depending on who you ask) has dominated the desktop market. Microsoft decided to make a computer an appliance, essentially. You cannot appeal to the massess of everyday non-techies unless you turn something that is effectively complex into an appliance that is easy to use.
As geeks, we like the ability to tinker with computers, since we enjoy it. Most people however, do not. We are often quite biased when it comes to how computers should be used an in what manner because we actually like them, whereas most people only need an e-mail client, file-sharing software, and some kind of media player and couldn't care less if they were able to manually configure system files.
I think a toaster is a good analogy. When I want to make toast, I just want to put some bread in the machine and have it toast it properly. Other than the "darkness" indicator for how crunchy to make it, I have no interest in other options. I don't want to have to adjust the distance the toast goes into the toaster, the exact temperature the coils reach, or even to indicate which coils should heat up and for how long. Now, there might be people who would like the option of changing these things, and that's fine. But I don't care about toasters that much, which is how most people feel about computers.
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It's nice to see DARPA funding some projects with interesting possibilities.
Of course, the goal is to also make the robot able "to safely interact with humans at eye level" (Technology Review) - which I doubt interests the military much...Unless they are curious about how safe it would be around other soldiers with a giant gun strapped to its back.
Though, a gun-toting Doorman Robot would probably make people move through doorways faster. Perhaps the Robot Doorman would also have the ability to shoot terrorist suspects on sight as it scanned the Microsoft brand ID tags that will be implanted in our necks - it would know, after all, if we went to www.burqa-porn.com or http://usgov.IwantToOverthrowIt.org, downloaded a linux OS, etc - instant terrorist flags.
What you list there is actually a major reason why Windows (in all its glory - fault-ridden or not, depending on who you ask) has dominated the desktop market. Microsoft decided to make a computer an appliance, essentially. You cannot appeal to the massess of everyday non-techies unless you turn something that is effectively complex into an appliance that is easy to use.
As geeks, we like the ability to tinker with computers, since we enjoy it. Most people however, do not. We are often quite biased when it comes to how computers should be used an in what manner because we actually like them, whereas most people only need an e-mail client, file-sharing software, and some kind of media player and couldn't care less if they were able to manually configure system files.
I think a toaster is a good analogy. When I want to make toast, I just want to put some bread in the machine and have it toast it properly. Other than the "darkness" indicator for how crunchy to make it, I have no interest in other options. I don't want to have to adjust the distance the toast goes into the toaster, the exact temperature the coils reach, or even to indicate which coils should heat up and for how long. Now, there might be people who would like the option of changing these things, and that's fine. But I don't care about toasters that much, which is how most people feel about computers.