AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy • Hacker News Board

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#161

Post by JohnFen » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #67

misterman0 wrote: post #38

I sometimes hold off washing my clothes for so long I end up wearing the same underwear two days in a row, then no underwear and very dirty socks, then no socks before I realize it's time to wind up the old washing machine. That's how much I hate washing. I wear every piece of clothing I have and at the end of a two month long washiless period I go to work looking a fool. And then after gaving washed my clothes I now…

I don't know about where you live, but in the UK we have launderettes that do service washes. You dump your clothes in bags, and dump those bags at the launderette and pay for them to wash and dry and fold your clothing. You can pay extra for ironing. You can provide your own detergents and softeners[1] or they can use theirs. You have to be careful because some of them are a bit clumsy and will boil the clothing, or…

There are such services in my part of the US, too. However, they're too expensive to easily justify.

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#162

Post by JohnFen » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #74

DanBC wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about where you live, but in the UK we have launderettes that do service washes. You dump your clothes in bags, and dump those bags at the launderette and pay for them to wash and dry and fold your clothing. You can pay extra for ironing. You can provide your own detergents and softeners[1] or they can use theirs. You have to be careful because some of them are a bit clumsy and will boil the clothing, or…

Contrary to the name, softeners do not soften the fabric but water and add more ionic detergent plus some smell. You get a bit more efficient washing as long as you reduce amount of washing medium. Oh, and they do impart negative charge to the fabrics making them seem fluffier. Some softeners do have protective oil or silicone or polysorbate that will coat the fabric protecting it more. (Similar mechanism to hair rin…

> Some softeners do have protective oil or silicone or polysorbate that will coat the fabric

I thought they all had that. I really dislike fabric softeners in part because I dislike the perfume they use and in part because they tend to render everything some degree of waterproof (bad for towels, particularly).

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#163

Post by chriszeoli93 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

Can they make an AI robot that files for bankruptcy?

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#164

Post by JohnFen » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

gourou wrote: post #136

perfunctory wrote: post #115

I like the ending "It’s sad news for everyone involved, but maybe we don’t need an expensive Wi-Fi-connected machine to do our simple chores for us. After all, now we have Marie Kondo to teach us how to fold fitted sheets."

Marie Kondo's folding method is not the common way of doing it, the 3-way folding is not easy to master at first. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lpc5_1896ro But yeah, 8 million views already.

I think I am congenitally unable to fold fitted sheets. I've tried every method I could find. In the end, I just decided to no longer use fitted sheets.

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#165

Post by JohnFen » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #48

Nice. There's a market for this technology in the sewing and commercial laundry industries. Fabric handling is a tough robotics problem, and progress is welcome. But for that, it will have to really work, every time.

...and it will have to work a lot faster than these machines.

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#166

Post by mschuster91 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:04 PM UTC

oliwarner wrote: post #147

bluGill wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This version. It isn't ready yet. If they do a $2k robot that finds my dirty clothing on the floor and puts clean clothing in the correct closet/draws (my kids, wife, and mine...) and I'm interested. Laundry takes a lot of time, and paying someone isn't really cost effective.

I'll start positively, by agreeing. Yes, if you can make a robot for $2k that does all that, cooks and cleans, perhaps teaches the kids to ride their bikes, dispenses oral sex, etc, again yes, they will sell and sell fast . But that's really a very significant distance from what we have, which is a constellation of very expensive robots that are demonstrably worse than humans at doing tasks unskilled humans are prett…

8$/h for vacuuming? No way unless you're abusing illegal immigrants.

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#167

Post by JohnFen » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

pnutjam wrote: post #121

clothes wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't fold my clothes, and haven't in 20 years. Which is to say, my clothes do not get folded by anyone. No one folde them for me, nor do I fold them myself. You don't have to fold most clothing. You can just toss it all in a basket and let it be. Most cotton wrinkles will disappear after being worn for about 20 minutes. Movement, body heat and ambient humidity removes wrinkles automatically from a lot of clothing.…

Unfolded clothes take a larger storage space. True, if left undisturbed in the basket after coming out of the drier, wrinkles are minimal. The problem is when other people in the household paw through the laundry and compress it. Also, if you want to put the laundry in drawers, it gets compressed and wrinkles badly.

> Unfolded clothes take a larger storage space.

This is the only reason I fold my laundry.

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#168

Post by JohnFen » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

return1 wrote: post #84

btw, the ironing is by far the worst aspect of dealing with laundry. Is folding even an issue?

Personally, I rarely need to iron anything. I have some fancy clothes I wear for fancy occasions, and they require ironing, but I only need them a few times a year.

The vast majority of my clothing doesn't really need to be ironed (even if it's not specifically "wrinkle free"). That's one of the criteria I use when I select my clothes.

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#169

Post by defterGoose » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

L_226 wrote: post #63

I feel like folding clothes in an approximately rectangular shape is the wrong approach. Rolling clothes into cylinders is potentially easier to design for, and it is pretty effective for storage too.

I recently started using Marie Kondo's method and I was thinking the same thing. Some combination of rollers and a big ducted fan/tube to blow air into the shirt beforehand. Maybe we should have a go at it. What are you doing this Saturday? ;)

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#170

Post by fireismyflag » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

d--b wrote: post #120

islon wrote: post #93

While a "AI-powered laundry-folding robot" company files for bankruptcy there's a guy making money selling onions on the internet.

The guy selling onions on the internet is not make a ton of money from it, though.

How do you make the backwards d in your username???

Long live usenet!