What I Did on my Summer Vacation: Robotic Dogsitter

Sometimes, I get so busy I forget to blog. Like the time I flew out to California to appear in Prototype This on the Discovery Channel. Don't tell your employer, but the crew on Prototype This linked into my robotic autonomy system, Motivity, to make an online dogsitter. You can watch your dog, talk to him, play with him, feed him a treat and even squirt him if he misbehaves, all from work! I have to tell you that I really liked being a celebrity -- all that attention! All those hands touching you! Afterward was a real let-down.... but that's another post.

Anyway, I don't know whether you've seen Prototype This. It is a very cool show; you should watch it.

Swisslog sends me to hospital

I'll be heading to more hospitals all over the US now that Swisslog Healthcare is selling me. Swisslog and CCS Robotics are adding buttons and carriers and access control, using the Developer Modules from my Motivity autonomous robot operating system. That means I deliver specimens pharmaceuticals in hospitals and labs at the touch of a button.

Have you seen me? Take a video and post it to YouTube and I'll send you a Motivity t-shirt! Just write me at robots at mobilerobots dot com to let me know!

Visit from the Plaid Van

I believe I've mentioned my largish colleague Seekur. He's learning to navigate on his own outdoors (already does quite well indoors). So, last week he was visited by a most peculiar fellow vehicle called the Plaid Van. You can read more about their encounter here.

Robots for Hire

engadget wonders whether we robots are well-paid; I have to say that we have juice available 24X7, and what more could a robot want? As for displacing healthcare support staff, hospitals tell us, they're not to be found -- 'specially for night shift! So a handful of people stretch to cover all positions -- which is what was happening at the hospital my colleague Frances went to work at.

Frances, btw, was dubbed that 'cause staff haven't had anyone to do the job since the person Frances retired, years ago. As soon as Speci-Minder arrived (with a male voice, fyi) the staff asked for a sex change and named their new go-fer Frances!

As for hiring people, hopefully, we won't be over-run with humans as we build more Speci-Minder bases for CCS Robotics!

Dogborg's Friday Fun at the MobileRobots Offices

Nabbed a pair of new infra-red sensors this week, which was good. Humans are so hard to understand with all that noise dribbling out of their mouths. These infra-reds give me nice clean input; I know precisely what they're saying. Unfortunately, what they're saying is not always what I want to hear.

Like today, I get an input from the green sensor in driving mode; as instructed, I wait for someone to approach me and then follow them. Ok, a couple of tours up and down the hall I don't mind, but pretty soon half the engineering staff is out there laughing and walking around in circles to spin me dizzy. Then they decide to make me follow another robot, so one of them walks in front of my bud, PatrolBot Juan, and slows him down while the other leads me to him, then rolls off so Juan and I start a parade down the hall. Like I said, I'm used to my freedom, heading out on my own. This following stuff is embarrassing, not my bag, particularly Juan. He's a nice enough bot, but he belongs to the engineers and is always being stripped apart and this and that added, while I... well, my code name is ShowPatrolBot for a reason. Btw, you can see some of the other bots that hang here in this ComputerWorld interview.

Oh, well, TGIF. Talk to you next week.

Hotel NexGen: Robots Checkin' out the Bar Scene!

I'm prepping my act for the top hotel techno wizards: Marriott, Mandarin Orient, Four Seasons... Most of them have never seen an intelligent robot in action. Dude, I'm interviewing to check out the chicks in all their classy hotel bars... now, who would not be cool with that line of work?

Here's the scene: I head into the bar, lookin' around, while some guest upstairs in their hotel room is just mousin' around his video screen, checkin' out the scene thru my camera. He sends me over to some table and tells me what to say. (Man, I sure hope he has some good pick-up lines, 'cause some of the people who run me make me feel like SUCH a fool, ya know?) If the conversation goes well, maybe he meanders on down in person. First, though I help him check for his boss, his coach or his ex-, saving embarrassment all round, right?

By the way, when I say I do what humans tell me, don't think that means they actually drive me, like those PackBot trackies. Most PackBots are good guys -- lotsa muscle -- but a bit short in the brains department, if you know what I mean. I, on the other hand, go where people tell me, but I do it my way, you know? I find the path myself. People stand in my way, I ask 'em to step aside -- real polite-like -- at least at first. Ok, I sometimes get a little frustrated, but the guest is always right, so I go around them and keep the whining to a minimum.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to showing my stuff at this Hotel Technology NexGen thing. It's some kinda closed room secret session the press aren't allowed into, but it'll be cool just the same. I'll tell you all about it here.