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DoubleRobotics: Telepresence gets sexy (and made in the USA)

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Re: DoubleRobotics: Telepresence gets sexy (and made in the USA)

#41

Post by DanielBMarkham »

Something about this feels really weird to me, like something out of a Woody Allen movie. Can you picture a company full of these guys? A restaurant with half the tables having robots sitting at them? A sporting even where little iPads sit in seats watching the action? Just feels --- odd.

Usually when I feel this way it's a great idea, because I have terrible instincts, so keep up the good work, guys! I'd love to try this out with various technology teams I help that do distributed work.

Re: DoubleRobotics: Telepresence gets sexy (and made in the USA)

#42

Post by GFischer »

mbq wrote: post #29

I've seen this before... Here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IvanAnywhere

The main difference from older products is price (and probably availability too). At a price of a plane ticket, it becomes more attractive - if it can reasonably simulate an in-person meeting, which is yet to be determined.

I don't think it will replace sales calls just yet, but it's a step forward.

Edit: AnyBots is U$ 15.000, so this is an order of magnitude cheaper.

And I found on Google TILR at U$ 10.000 http://robodynamics.com/products/

Plus, I found a hack of an iRobot that claims to give you a similar device for U$ 500 :)

http://www.fastcompany.com/1726174/500-irobot-hack-lets-you-...

Re: DoubleRobotics: Telepresence gets sexy (and made in the USA)

#43

Post by wmblaettler »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #41

Something about this feels really weird to me, like something out of a Woody Allen movie. Can you picture a company full of these guys? A restaurant with half the tables having robots sitting at them? A sporting even where little iPads sit in seats watching the action? Just feels --- odd. Usually when I feel this way it's a great idea, because I have terrible instincts, so keep up the good work, guys! I'd love to try…

It's does seem rather sci-fi to send a robot in your place or to embody a robot that is at a location where regular people are also located. I can more easily accept the idea of a telepresence robot in an office, but even that is rather uncanny.

It will be interesting to see if this tech really goes mainstream over the coming decades -- I predict it will.

Just an observation: a telepresence robot at a restaurant would not do much good in that the it cannot eat for you. But robotic servers -- that's entirely feasible.

Re: DoubleRobotics: Telepresence gets sexy (and made in the USA)

#44

Post by sp332 »

jayfuerstenberg wrote: post #6

This reminds of that board meeting scene in Demolition Man with all the monoliths with screens each projecting a participant's face on them. It seems interesting but I wonder if people would welcome this. Having an iPad with my boss' face on it rolling behind me at work feels creepy.

Or the movie Surrogates, where everyone just uses a robot avatar for everything, and never actually leave their houses.

Re: DoubleRobotics: Telepresence gets sexy (and made in the USA)

#45

Post by ricardobeat »

laverick wrote: post #34

Wonder how stable the gyro is. I can just see someone walking around the corner, bumping into this thing and crashing your telepresence to the floor.

A gyro-stabilized thing like this is usually more stable than a three our four-wheeled one, which can't fight back it's own weight.

Re: DoubleRobotics: Telepresence gets sexy (and made in the USA)

#47

Post by michaelt »

ricardobeat wrote: post #45
laverick wrote: post #34

Wonder how stable the gyro is. I can just see someone walking around the corner, bumping into this thing and crashing your telepresence to the floor.

A gyro-stabilized thing like this is usually more stable than a three our four-wheeled one, which can't fight back it's own weight.

Products like the Headthere Giraffe have a heavy-ass base full of batteries so the centre of gravity is lower than an office swivel chair. Which of course keeps it stable even if the battery runs down or the software crashes.

It's not a very elegant design, though, and it makes carrying the thing a hassle.

Re: DoubleRobotics: Telepresence gets sexy (and made in the USA)

#48

Post by cmansley »

tobias3 wrote: post #40
nivla wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually this reminded me of that episode of Big Bang Theory where Sheldon gets paranoid about germs or something and builds a similar device to interact with others. It was also the episode where they bring in Steve Wozniak. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K1uj9VmCzo

They used this one: http://www.willowgarage.com/pages/texai/overview (Competition coming soon https://www.suitabletech.com/ )

You mean spin-off company? Suitable is developing the Texai robot into a product.

Re: DoubleRobotics: Telepresence gets sexy (and made in the USA)

#50

Post by willowgarage »

cmansley wrote: post #48
tobias3 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They used this one: http://www.willowgarage.com/pages/texai/overview (Competition coming soon https://www.suitabletech.com/ )

You mean spin-off company? Suitable is developing the Texai robot into a product.

This is all correct. Suitable is a spin-off from Willow Garage, with many of the same people involved. Suitable's first product is based off the Texai project from Willow. The Texai was featured on the Big Bang Theory in one episode.
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