

For iRobot, the Future Is Getting Closer - hendzen
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/technology/for-irobot-the-future-is-getting-closer.html?_r=1&hp

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NathanKP
Did anybody else find the idea of two doctors speaking with headsets via
iRobot guiding their robots out into the hall for a private chat slightly
silly? Both doctors are already chatting via the Internet, why not just have
Skype like chat with each other directly without having to guide the robot
into the hall and communicate through the robots. This is one reason why I
don't see this as practical.

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melling
I think that the Iraq/Afghanistan wars have done for robotics what WW2 did for
jets. These recent wars have funneled a lot of money into robotics. I would
hope that we can get enough civilian uses that the investment continues. Now
we need to repeat the 1980's computer revolution for robotics.

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JDulin
The military has been investing huge amounts of money into robotics for
decades now, and most of the advancements in capability have been linear (and
expensive). But now the exciting thing is that thanks to Willow Garage,
Aldebaran-Robotics, and FIRST, the accessibility of robots has fallen to a
point where we have thousands of researchers and hobbyists working on robotics
constantly, building open-source software and raising the abilities of all
robot platforms. Higher accessibility will drive capability exponentially,
just like it did in the 1980s.

The cool part is that capability and accessibility are one in the same chain.
If you pull from either end, the other follows.

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melling
You're really not quantifying anything. Sure there has been research, but now
they are being used in "production" in very large numbers.

Here's a video that explains the advancements that I was talking about.

[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xm85yo_ted-talk-pw-
singer-o...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xm85yo_ted-talk-pw-singer-on-
military-robots-and-the-furture-of-war_tech)

The use of robots during the wars has been incredible. Notice the numbers have
gone from almost zero to about 10,000.

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tocomment
It amazes me in 2012 were still not even close to the level of robotics
technology they had in the movie short circuit. (I'm receding to the robots at
the beginning, not the part where he became conscious.)

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lispm
Wonderful, the overseas competition gets government subsidies, while iRobot
doesn't. It only gets military contracts. From the government.

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zerostar07
Anybody tried to connect a roomba to an android phone? Wondering if it s
possible to power a phone via the serial interface

