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Domestic Robots
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Domestic Robots
Useless androids will add distinction to your home |
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Not much distinguishes Nuvo from a Ming Dynasty vase |
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The most wonderful robot ever imagined is older than sliced bread and still hasn’t been beaten. C-3PO is the perfect friend: a multilingual droid that will keep you company. He’s talkative, scrupulously well mannered, obliging, and affectionate. He’s like that annoying, pathologically incoherent colleague at the office who has no sense of timing but is actually kind of charming and brings donuts in every morning. However, to date, this sort of creature exists only in the luminous realm of fantasy.
Nuvo was created with no small effort by Pininfarina’s creative director, Ken Okuyama. It’s very expensive, has incredibly boring and very profound research behind it and very little to offer. What does Nuvo do in our living rooms? It can walk without falling down, shake hands, put music on when you tell it to, or take pictures. It’s supposed to be a security android that watches your home. Incidentally, it can also scare off would-be dates.
Wakamaru was conceived byMitsubishi Heavy Industries to help look after children, elders, and sick people by reminding them to take their medicine and that sort of thing. It has a cell phone and web cam so it can contact whoever is in charge and help them keep an eye on things back home. However, this babysitter/nurse looks like it’ll be in grave danger if a beastly little brat decides he doesn’t want to be looked after and gives it a swift kick in the head…
But let’s get really. Because, seriously, an android that simply walks around the house all day playing the fool isn’t all that practical. What we really want them to do is clean our carpets, make home-cooked meals for us, and feed the cat while we’re away from home. As it stands, the Thermomix is still one of humanity’s greatest breakthroughs. Along with those wonderful vacuum cleaners that do our dirty work for us. There are a bunch of contraptions out there that only require you to press a button so your delicate hands can attend to more sophisticated pursuits…
Links
Nuvo
Wakamaru
Robot Shop
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9 Mar 2009)
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26 Jan 2009)
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17 Dec 2008)
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20 Aug 2008)
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24 Nov 2008)
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