First of all, there is nothing new about this. It’s been a part of science fiction lore since the beginning of science fiction. But as I have had more time to dip into my aggregator, I’ve noticed a handful of interesting articles about consumer robots.
One thing that is interesting to me is that they are coming from the Japanese auto industry. Toyota, on December 6, announced a range of robot products including a Violin playing android. Click here to see a YouTube video. A bit more practical is this Toyota ‘bot that provides mobility to those who are limited.
Honda is also well on its way with the Asimo. this video story (Japanese) illustrates this quite agile robot. I can’t find the stories now, but one of the more interesting features was these robots’ ability to plug themselves in when they need a charge — sort of “borg” -like! One of the companies is developing teams of bots that work together as a single unit.
It might be interesting to ask students to speculate on how they might use robots in the future. Mowing the grass? Certainly! But more autonomous robotic cars may be huge. Nissan has announced GPS-enabled cruse control in its luxury lines, where cruise slows down as you approach a curve that your on-board map knows is there.
Of course, we’re far from there yet — Not perfect!
4 thoughts on “A Maturing New Technology”