How To Attend Next Week's Robotics Show Robotically 38
DeviceGuru writes "Suitable Technologies is offering $50 rentals of its Beam mobile telepresence robot, allowing 50 robotics enthusiasts to remotely attend the RoboBusiness conference in Santa Clara, Calif. on Oct. 23-25. The Ubuntu- and ROS-based Beam will be available to the first 50 applicants, letting them explore the show at up to 1.5 meters/sec and interact with others via video conferencing. The bots will be allowed everywhere on the show floor as well as in conference rooms, and the show will be open late to accommodate remote users from distant time zones. The Beam is a good choice for remotely exploring conferences, saving users the cost and time of traveling to an event, says Suitable Tech; for example, RoboBusiness registration costs $1,595, not including hotel and travel. A list of the conference's keynotes, which include one by Christ Urmson, director of Google's Self-Driving Cars project, is available here."
Re:speed: 1.5 meters/sec = 3.3554 mph = 5.4 km/h (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know; is it still nitpicking if it's wrong? c can be expressed in m/s, but it can also be expressed in feet per minute or rods per fortnight. A metre is defined in terms of the speed of light (and the length of a second), not the other way around. The speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second, but it is not defined as such. As a physical - as far as we can tell - constant, it can't be defined - it can only be measured.