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Do You Love Me? [video]

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Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#171
post #147

I am a huge fan of spartan-like no-bullshit brutalist approach towards their marketing/PR: - No studio setup, just their lab - No artificial lighting - No fucks given about hiding the mess - Robots going through surgery in the background - Song is classy af IMO - Can see the camera man - Can see the engineers/employees - Framing/cinematography isn't as polished (this is a feature, not a bug) - Chipped paint, beaten u…

It's a cool ad, but it doesn't seem to be "spartan / brutalist" marketing to me. The point of the ad is to show you how their technology makes robots dance. But, clearly their real product isn't just dancing robots. They put a lot of work into making this functionality, and all that work is just for marketing! To me, a real spartan approach to marketing is spending very little money on marketing, and just focusing on…

One thing that's different is that BD doesn't have the pressure to sell to the masses, and they've been traded off from one giant to another (Google, Softbank and now Hyundai). I think they can afford to be spartan and truthful, I suspect a lot of big-corp marketing is based on metrics and data which drives you to doing unspartan things. My guess anyways, perhaps others can shed light.

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#172

I am a huge fan of spartan-like no-bullshit brutalist approach towards their marketing/PR: - No studio setup, just their lab - No artificial lighting - No fucks given about hiding the mess - Robots going through surgery in the background - Song is classy af IMO - Can see the camera man - Can see the engineers/employees - Framing/cinematography isn't as polished (this is a feature, not a bug) - Chipped paint, beaten u…

Impressive rant, but you realize this ad is CGI right? The opposite of everything you're praising. Or do you believe the cars in car ads are real too? [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/cinematographer-reveals-one-...

You understand that CGI is only used for the very high end cars?

That comes from the article you cited...

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#173
post #147

I am a huge fan of spartan-like no-bullshit brutalist approach towards their marketing/PR: - No studio setup, just their lab - No artificial lighting - No fucks given about hiding the mess - Robots going through surgery in the background - Song is classy af IMO - Can see the camera man - Can see the engineers/employees - Framing/cinematography isn't as polished (this is a feature, not a bug) - Chipped paint, beaten u…

It's a cool ad, but it doesn't seem to be "spartan / brutalist" marketing to me. The point of the ad is to show you how their technology makes robots dance. But, clearly their real product isn't just dancing robots. They put a lot of work into making this functionality, and all that work is just for marketing! To me, a real spartan approach to marketing is spending very little money on marketing, and just focusing on…

> Many of their robot models don't seem to exist for actual products, they just exist for marketing.

Wow :) I was under impression that, while Atlas is a flagship model with broad purposes, the other two are rather optimized transporting (and some other miscellaneous functions) robots, for specific applications.

Why do you think they couldn't find use as products?

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#175

As someone who worked in robotics at CMU in the mid 80s with Whittaker, & Raibert, and Crowley this was definitely super exciting to watch. You've come a long way baby. I remember watching you great, great grandfather hopping around in Raibert's lab in 1984. Yeah, and sort of scary.

Really scary. Whenever I see the latest Boston Dynamics video, I’m always thinking ‘and now imagine it’s hunting you’.

Meh. If someone wants to "hunt" you with a robot they can already do so with a UAV (think MQ-1 Predator, not an off-the-shelf quadrocopter). It is an already existing true and tested technology. Large governments around the world already maintain literal armies to maintain them and efficiently employ them to kill people. The fact that that weapon is not aimed at you or me is merely a political decision. With legged robots a lot more development is needed before they can do the same. I guess what I want to say: These robots are not deadly yet. The kind of people who can turn them deadly can already kill you if they want. I don't see why you should worry marginally more.

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#176

I am a huge fan of spartan-like no-bullshit brutalist approach towards their marketing/PR: - No studio setup, just their lab - No artificial lighting - No fucks given about hiding the mess - Robots going through surgery in the background - Song is classy af IMO - Can see the camera man - Can see the engineers/employees - Framing/cinematography isn't as polished (this is a feature, not a bug) - Chipped paint, beaten u…

All of this is trivially explained by the fact that they are not a consumer oriented company so they don’t have to sell hype. Their customers aren’t average people chasing trends and reading Twitter. Nearly every b2b business markets in a similar way.

When you’re competing in a vicious field for consumer mindshare it leads to the marketing and self aggrandizing because you’re literally trying to capture the attention of stupid people.

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#177

I was going to ask how long these robots can move without a power cord, but then I found this article from 2015 ( https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30919098 ) that says it's about an hour. If that was in 2015, I'm guessing they're above 2 hours now. Very interesting. If they could rapid-charge, and could just "take a break" for 15 minutes every 2 hours, they could be used alongside humans doing various manual tasks…

or "take a break" 30 seconds to switch battery packs

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#178
post #138

It's hard to believe that they were acquired for 'only' 1.1B, given the valuations we have seen of many other companies recently.

Bipedal robots will replace human labour and the first person to make them inexpensive will become unfathomably wealthy. How much did slack go for? 30 billion? For a shiny chat client with fewer features than the 25 year old tech they ape.

> Bipedal robots will replace human labour and the first person to make them inexpensive will become unfathomably wealthy.

Yeah, until there's a B1-66ER incident...

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Change playback speed to 50% and it looks more realistic. That's probably realtime and they sped up the video.

75% looks most similar to the previous Atlas videos. Also the movement of the people upstairs behind the glass or the reflections of the cameraman confirm that it has been sped up.

I don't know how fast you walk, but at 75% those people are definitely in slow-motion. I could see maybe 90%, but 100% looks completely natural to me as far as their movements are concerned. (Personally, I want to see a jump at 90% to judge, not someone walking.)

Re: Do You Love Me? [video]

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Impressive rant, but you realize this ad is CGI right? The opposite of everything you're praising. Or do you believe the cars in car ads are real too? [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/cinematographer-reveals-one-...

This is the best compliment for BD.

Yeah, flattering and also annoying and sad. Marvin (HHGG) definitely had a point, we might see that rather soon.
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