Robot builders hunt for a killer application

Human Interaction...

Finn, quite so!

We don't want robots that wander around our houses knocking vases over, stepping on the family dog and cheerily reading our email - we want things like Roomba, but better.

The sales pitch needs to be more along the lines of 'you pay us £800 for a robot that you'll never see again - but you'll also never have clean your floors or mow the lawn again'.

It's all there in the title

hiding in plain view. Those boffins should just read El Reg more closely.

Robot, my coat please. (Got to be pleasant to these things else they might suddenly turn vicious at an unexpecte

Make something useful!

Sure robotics is where computers were in the 70s. They're big clunky things, expensive, high maintenance, and suitable only for use on simple pre-programmed tasks (and requiring heavy-duty programming to do those tasks).

What made home computers happen? They became small, relatively cheap, relatively powerful, and most importantly versatile enough to provide several applications that people really needed in one box: mainly spreadsheets and word processors. Games were a big part later, but they'd never have happened if there wasn't an established market for home computers already - and when games did become a major player in home computing, it was because they came up with innovative ideas for how to play games (or copied those ideas from arcade games).

So until robots are small, relatively cheap, relatively powerful and versatile, they're never going to have any significant impact. At the moment, they're large, heavy, expensive, weak and unable to do anything useful. And most of what robotics places call "robots" are just funky versions of a remote-control car. (You say you can control that robot's fingers with your fingers? And it's using remote-control servos and a radio link? Just like the £10 kiddy toy I got as a present 25 years ago? Wow dude, that sure is progress!)

The only robot to do anything useful to date is the Roomba, and that's more like the robot equivalent of the electronic calculator than the computer. Still, it's a start, but if the robotics industry wants to go mainstream then it needs more focus on what people actually need and how to achieve it, instead of yet another robot head or remote-control buggy.

@Finn

Actually, robotic lawn mowers and floor polishers already exist, and are commercially available. Also robotic inventory managers which fetch, store, organize and sort all manner of material in huge automated warehouses.

The trouble is that the trade show types are mostly marketing idiots, and don't understand what the real needs are, and underestimate their audience. People want things that work, not anthropomorphic novelties. Instead, people want unpleasant, repetitive, and menial tasks automoated. Show me a robot that'll scrub my bathroom for me, and I'll own it immediately.

Left to engineers and geeks, robots will quietly continue their slow inflitration of society, doing things people actually want done.

The trouble is

the marketing idiots want their 15 mins of fame. They'll say anything to get on the BBC or El Reg. "Robot oil to cure all known diseases, just as soon as we can find it." "Robots to discover life on Mars". Well, there isn't any of interest, unless amanfromMars is communicating by writing directly into our screen buffers from 100 million miles away.

@Kurt

Not necessarily replacing people, any more than dishwashers and washing machines replaced people. If robots are going to find their way into houses, they need to be doing time-consuming chores which people would otherwise have to do themselves, thereby creating more free time for people. As mentioned above, that's trimming the hedge, washing the toilet, etc..

sexbot cleanbot

Only two applications I know of that we need robots for and are they working on that probably not it's Microsloth after all I wouldn't trust a robot they made to do either of these things without breaking something forget it there is no future in consumer robotics as far as they're concerned.