The Open Source Humanoid Robot and Its Many Uses

ruphus13 writes with a story about the open-source centric Willow Garage project (last mentioned on Slashdot early last year), which is making progress in creating helpful humanoid robots for household use. From the article: "PR2 is the mobile hardware design for Willow Garage robots, featuring stereo and laser sensors ... Senior citizens are a big part of the target audience that Willow Garage is aiming for. "All industrialized countries are facing aging populations that require assistance and care to remain independent into old age. By 2020 close to 20 percent of the US population will be over 65," the project leaders say. "These numbers are even higher in Western European and Asian countries." Willow Garage is aiming to produce several types of assistive robots." The PR2 robots are capable of performing critical tasks like cleaning rooms and bringing beer from a refrigerator."

article WTF?

[InterruptDescriptorT]

"The PR2 robots are capable of performing critical tasks like cleaning rooms and bringing beer from a refrigerator."

(emphasis mine)

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy several cold ones on a daily basis, but is it fair to qualify the ability of a robot to procure a can of lager from the fridge as a critical task?

Re:article WTF?

[mustafap]

>is it fair to qualify the ability of a robot to procure a can of lager from the fridge as a critical task?

You obviously get out too much. Are you sure you should be reading this site?

Re:article WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you absolutely wanted the estate, or actually needed it ASAP, then maybe you'd buy granny one of the proven "Intoxicator" range of robots, and hope machine-motived binge drinking helps put your ancestry in a critical condition...

Re:article WTF?

[Freebirth Toad]

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy several cold ones on a daily basis, but is it fair to qualify the ability of a robot to procure a can of lager from the fridge as a critical task?

The robot will have to analyze the bottle critically so it doesn't mistakenly bring me an ale.

01101000 01101101 01101101

[thermian]

01001001 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100101 01101100 01100011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01101111 01110000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110011 01101111 01110101 01110010 01100011 01100101 00100000 01110010 01101111 01100010 01101111 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110110 01100101 01110010 01101100 01101111 01110010 01100100 01110011

To paraphrase ...

[erlehmann]

No glowing spine.
Less boobs than Tricia Helfer.
Lame.

Oh no!

[Layth]

Lucy Liu bot is stuck in an infinite loop, and fry's an idiot!

"You're cute!"
"No you're cute!"
"No, you're cute!"