Shownotes:
Robotic breakthroughs are entering our lives quickly in the form of useful by-products. As scientist work to build safe, humanoid robots, the technology they discover shows up in cameras, cars, video games and more.
The final Brief for Innovation Week is a couple days late because we did a little Chicken Fried Bacon thing with Kat from RealCookN.TV and it left us feeling a little ill. It tasted great, but two slices of deep-fried battered bacon isn’t all that different than eating 50 piece fried shrimp plate.
Brief 412 is about robotics starting with information from Intel about research they’re doing on catoms (claytronic atoms). Catoms will be programmable electronic atoms that will form electronic devices and rearranged themselves to form other electronic devices. A research group at Intel is supporting The Big Trip through PaidByPixels.com and we’ll get some access to some of their research. I’m hoping we’ll get to see what they’re looking at that indicates catom technology will be available in my lifetime.
iRobot is a leader in bringing practical robots to market for consumers and military applications. They’ve sold 2.5 million floor cleaning robots to early adopters like me. It isn’t a bad number, but it also doesn’t indicate mass appeal. The Christian Science Monitor just ran a piece about how different the persception robots is between American consumers and Japanese consumers. Americans are skeptical. Japanese are optimistic. Hopefully, exposing American kids to robotic toys like Pleo will start to change all that.
Roboticists like Aaron Edsinger is working on bring robots to market that don’t require a manual. Domo is a cute little guy that adapts to his environment and has the ability to put stuff on shelves.
Even though the thought of having robots actively involved in our daily lives seems far away, it’s actually happened already. Robotics research has lead to discoveries that are already being incorporated into consumer technology. Facial focus technology in consumer cameras came from robotics research. The same is try of all kinds of technologies being used in modern cars. C-3P0 and R2-D2 may be years away, but robots are already working to make our lives better today.
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August 24th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Did I hear you say that you were getting a robot?
August 24th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Hey Cali,
I think I need a Domo…don’t you?? ;) Would make cooking a LOT of fun!!! Dave already wants a Pleo…
GREAT Brief! You guys are the BEST!
Hugs,
Kat
August 24th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Wow. That was a great one. Thanks for pulling in the videos, making sure we see them. It’s incredible stuff, and I am glad to see the kind of work that being done in different corners of robotics. Nice touch, pointing out the consumer trickle-down from this research, too. Great way to end Innovation Week!
August 25th, 2008 at 12:18 am
Wow, my last comment was flagged as spam. My apologies to Cali and the community of viewers if we’re not supposed to post video links. It was a link to Japanese robotics research I thought would be interesting.
August 25th, 2008 at 4:35 am
Man, I wanted to tell everybody so bad that I’m getting a robot LOL.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:05 am
What a fantastic episode, Neal and Cali!!! Bravo!
August 25th, 2008 at 11:28 am
I am often puzzled by people’s reluctance to accept robots as options for some of their tasks now.
For example, I use two RoboMowers from Friendly Robotics to mow my lawn. I’ve met all my neighbors and a few strangers driving by because of them. They all want to know how they work and if they’re expensive. I’m happy to give the details and explain how they end up being less costly than a decent riding mower. But not one of my neighbors has made the leap. There seems to be some mental barrier about the idea that stops them.
What they don’t realize is that they already have robots in their home, but just not in a form that makes them realize it. To help them think about it, I usually tell them about the other robot I have inside my house that washes my dishes.
After I’ve peaked their interest, I explain that it’s a big rectangular box with the word “Whirlpool” on the front. :-)
(By the way, it’s fun to ask kids to draw pictures of what they think a dishwashing robot might look like. You usually get fun pictures with camera eyes and lots of arms holding plates and towels and such. Then I draw my big rectangular box.)
August 25th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Please put the ‘cooking videos’ separate from the ‘tech videos’.
We don’t visit this site for the bacon recipes.
August 26th, 2008 at 8:30 am
Did you stop your feed to Tivo?
It doesn’t appear to be updating . . .
August 26th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
The reckon the next huge step would be to try and get both the household robots of today to communicate with the house itself.
You mentioned a few episodes back about the intergrated system running by macs, which could by operated by your iPhone. What if, the robot cleaner knew if you had configured your lounge in to the cinema setting – and so wouldn’t go venturing in there. What would be more exciting is that the cleaner would remember that it hadn’t cleaned there yet, and when you had finished your film, would return to finish the job!
Ok, I’m dreaming a little – but I would be in heaven! :oP
September 4th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
at the end of the ep, you said robot sex. have you been listening to Skynext podcasts? Robot Love is a big issue for them… great job Cali