In Star Trek III, Scotty cause a malfunction so the gang could steal a starship. He said ‘The more they overthink the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the drain’ One of the many tips I’ve learnt from Star Trek alongside my dread of wearing a red top.
So when I read this article on controlling robots where it has a ‘butler’ hoping from one to the other and controlling them while presenting a standard interface to the user I have to shake my head. Why?
For one thing it seems it can only control one at a time. Hope all the others stop in exactly the right place and not doing anything dangerous when they do. What exactly is the issue with having two robots going at once with the same software for the standard interface anyway?
I’m a firm believer is the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle. I want to see a robot that hoovers the carpet. I buy it in a shop. Plug it’s base station in to the power grid and then mark out where it is to hoover which it stores in it’s memory then the instructions for activation and how it performs it’s task all on a simple wifi linked web based GUI.
So it gets up in the middle of the night when triggered by my snoring, or whatever, and goes around picking up the bits. When finished it goes back to empty itself and recharge. Yet another picks up my clothes and puts them in the washing machine and if necessary the washing machine analyses the clothes, selects the right chemicals and washes them. When finished another hangs them up to dry. In the meantime out in the garden another cuts the grass while another wanders around the veg patch zapping slugs and snails. All without some smart alec program having to tell them what to do on a second by second basis and I only need to know when some berk breaks it or it malfunctions and it can do that by simply sending a message to the base station which brings it in for servicing or notifies me it is malfunctioning. Of course in this day and age that means replacement and send the old one back for recycling.
Why do we have to make things so complicated? At least my way my garden mower wouldn’t think of taking over the world and killing me, red shirt or not, in it’s attempt.
So when I read this article on controlling robots where it has a ‘butler’ hoping from one to the other and controlling them while presenting a standard interface to the user I have to shake my head. Why?
In the word of the inimitable Lord T: ‘KI.S.S.’
By the way, do you think you could increase the size of the font in the comments box? Bit tricky.
I’ll have a look at it over the weekend. I’m sure there must be a way.
Funny. I had exactly the same requirement for a robot. Primarily wrt doing the vacuum cleaning and also as a burglar alarm system. The problem is, robot technology is years behind PC technology.
I bought a Lego Mindstorm but it’s just not a serious platform.
What’s needed is for someone like Apple to do for robots what they did for computers.
Joe, I agree about getting a decent company involved but I don’t think robotics is miles behind computers. I just think that they are concentrating on maing a human looking one. The US military already have security bots and the like and there was talk about letting them police the Texas/Mexico border.
I’ve looked at the bits for robots and they are very expensive but how much will it cost to put a model car chassis on a Dyson and program it to drive around a house. Less that the Dyson i would have though and I would pay double the cost of a hoover to have one that did the work itself.
Yes Lord T.
I agree with what you say about military/police robots or human-like robots with Japanese accents etc. I was thinking more specifically about comparing going out today to buy a PC for the home versus buying a robot for the home. In the case of the robot most components are proprietary (operating systems, physical interfaces etc). Tiny memory sizes (kilobytes rather than gigabytes). None of the standardisation that brings down prices or acts as an enabler for innovation (USB, CF, SD etc). You end up paying a lot of money for very limited capability. The Spykee has eventually been launched which is a small step in the right direction but it was with regard to the current state of High Street products that I meant an organisation like Apple could have a huge impact.
James, Have adjusted the size in the comment box. Is it OK now.
Joe, I agree. I’m assuming that it’s because not many people are actually interested in building their own robots. If people started then it would sort out. However, not many people build their own hoover, microwave etc. but mass production brings it down and it doesn’t need Apple for that and in fact I think it would be better if someone like Sony or Panasonic did it. We must be on the verge of doing these now.