Household Robot Jibo Nets Over $1 Million On Indiegogo 61
mikejuk (1801200) writes After seven days the Jibo project has over $1.1 million. What is surprising is that Jibo isn't a complex piece of hardware that will do the dishes and pick up clothes. It doesn't move around at all. It just sits and interacts with the family using a camera, microphones and a voice. It is a social robot, the speciality of the founder, MIT's, Cynthia Breazeal. The idea is that this robot will be your friend, take photos, remind you of appointments, order takeaway and tell the kids a story. If you watch the promo video then you can't help but think that this is all too polished and the real thing will fall flat on its face when delivered. If it does work then worry about the hundreds of kids needing psychiatric counselling — shades of Robbie in I, Robot. Even if it is hopelessly hyped — there is a development system and I want one. It is the early days of the home computer all over again.
Re:crap hardware (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, it's the early days of home computers and this is nothing more than a "Speak and Spell".
The TI Speak & Spell was incredibly sophisticated for its time, imagine a device in 1978 that had a character screen, plug-in vocabulary software modules, game apps, and of all things...could SPEAK OUT LOUD with sounds that where created by A speech synthesis processor instead of just samples. We didn't even have Commodore vic 20 or Commodore 64 by then, the Speak and Spell was an amazing piece of hardware. The speech synthesis chip TMS 5220 still blows me away with what it can do. You'll also find that chip (and it's siblings) inside various Arcade machines AND pinball machines, even more recent pinball machines.
And just to top that off, that little portable "computer", lasts for YEARS on a single set of batteries using it several hours each month, and it's soft-switch technology! Not even cellphones handle that kind of standby times even with the network disconnected. Don't diss the TI S&S!