Silicon Valley Library Tests Book-Returning Robot Created By Google (siliconvalley.com) 44
What if a robot came to your house to retrieve library books? An anonymous reader quotes the Bay Area Newsgroup:
Residents in downtown Mountain View have gotten their first peek at the future with the debut of BookBot, the library's newest non-human helper. A creation of Google's Area 120 -- an experimental division of the technology juggernaut -- the bot is the company's first personal delivery robot to hit the streets and begin interacting with the public, said Christian Bersch, the project's team lead. It's part of a program to test the waters of what could be possible for autonomous, electric robots, he said...
The pilot will run for nine months with a human handler following behind the BookBot for the first six months, he said. That's just to make sure it's operating as planned, get it out of trouble as needed and observe how people are responding. After that, a human will sit behind the controls remotely. And, on a recent Thursday, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Children shrieked at the sight of the robot and immediately jumped in its path to see if it would stop. (It does...) Users must schedule the pickup time in advance, which -- because the bot is fairly popular -- means planning at least a week ahead. It can carry up to about 10 items, Bersch said, depending on the size of the books.
The pilot will run for nine months with a human handler following behind the BookBot for the first six months, he said. That's just to make sure it's operating as planned, get it out of trouble as needed and observe how people are responding. After that, a human will sit behind the controls remotely. And, on a recent Thursday, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Children shrieked at the sight of the robot and immediately jumped in its path to see if it would stop. (It does...) Users must schedule the pickup time in advance, which -- because the bot is fairly popular -- means planning at least a week ahead. It can carry up to about 10 items, Bersch said, depending on the size of the books.
Re: (Score:1)
It takes a weeks notice for it to show up, and then it can take up to 10 of your library items....
what is this shit? (Score:2)
LOL, what? (Score:3)
In a digitally-transformed publishing world, we have AI-powered robots that handle returns of library books?
Look, I love books and libraries. But Google, I think you may be doing it wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe they needed something for their diversity hires to do?
I'll grant that it's an interesting and challenging project -- the kind that could provide lessons learned for other ones.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The bots' main task is not collecting the books, but collecting the late dues. Be afraid...
I won't be afraid until they start delivering summonses. There's always the mail to deliver late-fee bills.
One of the goals of the project might be to encourage people (particularly kids) to be less afraid of "robots amongst us". And it looks like it might be working.
Re: (Score:2)
You owe $2.39 in late fees. You have 20 seconds to comply [mwctoys.com]
Re:LOL, what? (Score:4, Funny)
They're retrieving the data bits from the digital books. The robots have a little EPROM flasher and it wipes the bits off of the reader devices.
Re: (Score:3)
They're retrieving the data bits from the digital books. The robots have a little EPROM flasher and it wipes the bits off of the reader devices.
Fahrenheit 0b111000011?
Re: (Score:1)
This is pretty silly (Score:2)
Maybe it's marginally useful in a senior citizen home providing services to the bedridden.
Otherwise I think it's just embarrassing.
The real threat robots pose to humanity: (Score:2)
Buggy whip wagon (Score:1)
I'm purely guessing, but cannot believe that ebooks are not wholesale replacing actual paper and pages.
Which makes Googles experiment either :
- a "we've got so much freaking cash let's have fun" experiment
- a wolf in sheep's clothing as this is either the future of pizza and Amazon delivery, just wrapped up in a neutral package, OR a means to swot your house if you're found in violation of the leftist norms polluting Google, and as speach is violence, this provides a means for the soft sjws to terminate w
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, you are purely guessing, which makes your conclusions simply wrong. Physical (paper) book sales enjoy modest increases every year. There is no downward trend and particularly nothing that can be attributed to rising ebook sales. Libraries' check out rates continue to climb every year. If we have a recession, watch them climb even faster. It happens every time. You can guess why.
The fact is people don't like ebooks all that much. Not that they are not often imminently practical (like on an airplane), bu
Reverse the purpose. (Score:2)
Premise 1. Before the computer-robot-techno age, retrieving overdue books back to the free public lending library was a big deal, still is, to make sure all can enjoy the item. From that perspective, this is indeed a neat achievement, for the reasons stated, because people get lazy about the returns, so this makes it simple, in a hassle-free non-retaliatory way. But, the very technologies that make this possible have also changed the nature of libraries and public consumption of media, so there are novel
Google book returning bot meets book stealing bot (Score:1)
Who will win?
Prediction (Score:2)
It will work mostly ok for the 6 months where there is a human supervisor, and as soon as it's fully autonomous it will disappear within a week, to be found smashed up in an alleyway somewhere.
What nonsense (Score:1)
Google obviously doesn't know how people use the library. You go to the library, check out books, then when you're done reading those books, you go back to the library, return the old books and get a new batch. Google - it's a freaking ENDLESS LOOP. There is ZERO need to pickup the books unless you can actually deliver new books at the same time. Geesh, the tech world has been taken over by the brainless fucktards.