This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them.Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
From now until Valentine's Day, InformationWeek will be doing lists of things we love, including everything from mobile devices to enterprise software and all things in between. Today, we’re looking at some of the craziest things we've taught robots to do in the last year. Robots are serious business. We find them in the military, manufacturing, healthcare, and increasingly in other enterprise settings.
The interesting thing about robots is that most are still very specialized, and they need to be that way because we're still trying to figure out how to replicate many human tasks. Not everyone necessarily wants to create a perfectly human android. But nearly all robotic tasks are designed to replicate something that is either too dangerous, too tedious, or too expensive for a human to do. Even without trying to make an artificial life form, the key to making better robots it to figure out how to teach them to do everything a human can do.
That's everything. Even crazy things. You must have seen this vomiting robot from a few years ago, vomiting Larry:
Larry is designed to help understand contamination issues, especially around Norovirus. And realistically, we're probably not going to need to make a robot throw up for any reason in the future, but waiting for humans to throw up to run a test (or inducing them to do so) doesn't make sense either.
In the past, we've also had robots learn to catch, play ping-pong (mostly), and run. These were clearly designed around helping robots move and have coordination that's more like humans. And yet the catalog of human endeavor has barely been scratched.
One wonders how long it will be until we start putting the catching robot together with the running robot and the ping-pong playing robot to make an athlete that rivals Olympians. When will we take the vomiting robot and attach it to other medical training robots to make a patient that med students can work on and get a real-life experience? We're getting close.
Miniaturizing everything and supplying the computing power is still hard. But as you can see this most recent crop of crazy robots is showing promise. The tasks are more complicated and they are doing them faster and with more practical value (well, some). The "real" androids may not be far behind.
Check out the crazy things we're doing now, and tell us your favorites in the comments section below.
David has been writing on business and technology for over 10 years and was most recently Managing Editor at Enterpriseefficiency.com. Before that he was an Assistant Editor at MIT Sloan Management Review, where he covered a wide range of business topics including IT, ... View Full Bio
We welcome your comments on this topic on our social media channels, or [contact us directly] with questions about the site.
Dave, I see the potential in all the other robots your illustrated. The bartender robots even make sense, I could see them being used in a laboratory or something. I could even see the skiing robots saving people on mountains in treacherous places that people would never survive. But the turtle-like Disney robot that makes drawings in the sand? How does that help?
I'm sorry, I am not a fan of Disney. A friend of the family is a major executive there; she's like VP of New Business or something and I get to hear all the things that Disney takes over and then raises the price on.
I'm happy to hear about how that beach drawing robot will help.
David Wagner, User Rank: Strategist 2/5/2015 | 8:29:15 PM
Re: Cooking in the IoT Kitchen
@TerryB- I'm guessing if you can teach it to cook, you can teach it to go to the store and shop. I just can't wait for the first time my robot asks to borrow the car keys.
David Wagner, User Rank: Strategist 2/5/2015 | 8:27:50 PM
Re: Cooking in the IoT Kitchen
@BilldChandler- Sounds like you are basically looking for the maid in the Jetsons. I think that's a splenid idea. Except I always found it a little odd that she wore the little french maid outfit.
David Wagner, User Rank: Strategist 2/5/2015 | 8:26:35 PM
Re: disney
@soozyg- Well, i don't think it is fair to complain that an entertainment company made an entertainment product. that' slike saying, "There goes NASA again, sending another rocket into space."
That said, there is real value to this. Teaching robots to do complex autonomous activites is hard. Miniaturizing it is harder. Think about a situation like manufacturing. Manufatcuring is a very comlex dance of movements that machines have to be meticiulously programmed to do. If you could teach robots to naviagte that process without being quite as choreographed, they'd be safer and better at their jobs. I'm not saying Disney is getting into manufacturing, but these sorts of technology have a way of inspiring other areas.
David Wagner, User Rank: Strategist 2/5/2015 | 8:23:17 PM
Re: cooking robot
@Soozyg- Well, they say it is a complicated math formulat but they won't go into it because it is DARPA. But basically, what they've been able to do is make it understand what it is seeing so it doesn't need a script. It sees the person beating eggs, it gets that the whisk and the motion are the important part of beating eggs. So it icks up a whisk and beats eggs. It is amazing.
I can't find the link, but someone recently programmed a TV camera to watch basketball and film the important parts, too. This is becoming a "thing" now where computers can see real life and focus on specific things as opposed to the whole.
David Wagner, User Rank: Strategist 2/5/2015 | 8:20:33 PM
Re: projecting
@soozyg- I think the problem is that there wasn't enough vomiting on command. :)
No seriously, there are major issues in hospitals and the hospitality industry around how to cleanup after someone throws up. Specifically norovirus is a major problem on something like a cruise ship. When you vomit, some of the liquid aerosolizies and travels farther than was previously known.
Only want one of these unless it is capable of running to the store for all the recipe ingrediants it needs and you don't have. Doing that for the wife is one thing, I'll be darned if I'm doing it for a robot.
Maybe it can be partnered with that drone delivery service Amazon is working on, then we might have something here....
Kelly22, User Rank: Strategist 2/5/2015 | 11:43:12 AM
Re: Cooking in the IoT Kitchen
In all my years teaching swim lessons, I don't think I ever taught anyone to dive as gracefully as that robot.
I can see the terrifying implications of the cooking robot - that could easily fall into the wrong hands. Though it's hard to ignore the wonderful possibility of having a robot around to save me from my own cooking...
State of the CloudCloud has drastically changed how IT organizations consume and deploy services in the digital age. This research report will delve into public, private and hybrid cloud adoption trends, with a special focus on infrastructure as a service and its role in the enterprise. Find out the challenges organizations are experiencing, and the technologies and strategies they are using to manage and mitigate those challenges today.
The Cloud Gets Ready for the 20'sThis IT Trend Report explores how cloud computing is being shaped for the next phase in its maturation. It will help enterprise IT decision makers and business leaders understand some of the key trends reflected emerging cloud concepts and technologies, and in enterprise cloud usage patterns. Get it today!
To save this item to your list of favorite InformationWeek content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.