Robots Put To Work On E-Waste 39
aesoteric writes: Australian researchers have programmed industrial robots to tackle the vast array of e-waste thrown out every year. The research shows robots can learn and memorize how various electronic products — such as LCD screens — are designed, enabling those products to be disassembled for recycling faster and faster. The end goal is less than five minutes to dismantle a product.
Let me guess (Score:1)
It's called Wall-E.
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EVA!
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As a bonus, if the robots wear out, they can be easily disassembled.
5 minutes (Score:3)
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For retooling reasons. You can't keep the building machines around for long enough until each and every buyer decides to throw away their thing (add eBay and nostalgia into the mix and that may as well be "forever"). But if you have these machines that you _can_ keep around for dismantling purposes, regardless of the age of the product that is being dismantled, I think you got yourself a pretty good deal.
The deal could get even better if the manufacturers were to provide dismantling instructions to these ro
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They've already been dismantled.
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This Is And Out Rage! (Score:2)
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There is no point in learning if your job is outsourced anyway.
Just learn a craft they can't send to China/India (yet).
Once the Chinese/Indians become too expensive, will be sent to the next shithole anyway.
Just Saying... (Score:2)
And industrial shredder can dismantle a product in a second or two.
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And industrial shredder can dismantle a product in a second or two.
But of course an industrial shredder won't be able to collect and sort 80's memorabilia as efficiently as a Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth-class...
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... and save humanity from an evil autopilot.
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... and save humanity from an evil autopilot.
Auto wasn't evil, he was just doing what he was programmed for directive A113 [wikipedia.org]...
As often is the case, it's likely that PEBKAC at fault. Usually, nobody ever thinks about spec-ing out the error cases enough...
Wouldn't that be a good job for unemployed people? (Score:1)
I always think... what are the people who were doing it going to do?
We soon have a surplus of H-Waste.... what are all these people going to do? In fact in The Netherlands an MP has brought up the topic an era in which there may not be paid work for everyone anymore. What will it mean for those who just can't find work?
What do you all think? If I could hit a button and it would wipe out 50% of the population including myself/loved ones, I would press it without any hesitation. It would be a nice reset of wh
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That's a good non-reproducting activity that will keep him happy and busy at a very low cost, good thinking!
Isn't that creepy for them? (Score:2)
Re:Isn't that creepy for them? (Score:5, Funny)
My uncle dismantled a Chevy Nova in 4 seconds. (Score:5, Funny)
My uncle dismantled a Chevy Nova in 4 seconds. He did have some help from a train.
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How'd he get one of those to actually, uh, go?
But what happens when you need (Score:2)
a robot to disassemble the robots that disassembled stuff?
And what about the robots to disassemble the robots that disassembled robots that disassembled stuff?
And what about the robots to dis..........AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH MY BRAIN!
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It's not murder if the devices aren't active anymore.
Recycle (Score:2)
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I'd be glad to have a robot that could desolder for me. Heck, just heat the damn board up until the solder melts and pull everything off.
I spent 3 hours the other night desoldering most of an old CRT's boards for components (side of road, and I'm a cheap bastard. Loads of free power components). Solder wick and a manual solder sucker, because I don't have a nice desoldering station or a hot air rework station. But a robot that could use an IR laser and a vacuum picker/other grabber would be awesome. It suck
poor robots... (Score:1)
How would you feel if robots made you work on human bodyparts and corpses?
Our esteemed PM wants to know (Score:1)