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The News -
Latest News
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Written by William Cox
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Monday, 18 July 2005 |
 The Lincoln Journal Star Online has an interesting article about telepresence doctor bots.
The idea is that a doctor can check up on his patients without ever
leaving the office, by way of a two way video conferencing robot.
The way I see it, now he can bill you $500 dollars for that 5 minute
(and yes, I've experienced that) visit without ever moving his butt ouf
a chair.
"More than 35 hospitals are using the same type of
robot roaming the halls at Johns Hopkins, paying $120,000 to buy or
$4,000 a month to rent each unit. For $5,000, doctors can install a
control station in their office, home or clinic."
By way of opposition to this new technology, someone said, "I work in a
nursing home, and these people are desperate for touch," which they
won't get with doctorbot.
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The News -
Latest News
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Written by William Cox
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Thursday, 14 July 2005 |
 It appears that New York Times journalists have all the luck, because this one got to review the latest from ZMP Inc., a cute yellow walking robot pal. Of course, the one central glowing eye does seem a bit spooky, but that's beside the point.
Nuvo, who sells for about $6,000 (ouch) is, "marketed as household helpmate and as a mobile baby monitor and security device."
Judging from the article, Nuvo seems pretty good at recognizing voice
commands. "When I called it, its sensors detected me and it
automatically stopped about six inches from my feet," and, "During one
poignant scene on "America's Most Wanted," in which a victim
was weeping, Nuvo's eye light turned blue and it shook its head."
The author tells how she came to really like having Nuvo around and started to view it as a pet.
As for Nuvo's future, "The next version of Nuvo, expected out next year, will be capable of
reading appointments from a programmable calendar and reciting e-mail
messages, traffic reports and news headlines retrieved from the Internet."
There's a video of Nuvo moving on the site (free registration required.)
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The News -
Latest News
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Written by William Cox
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Monday, 11 July 2005 |
Completely unrelated ... for a while. Who knows, with Korea's latest
robot jag they might be sending silicone friends to far off planets.
More news from Korea. "Park showed a glimpse of the new-concept robot,
an all-in-one model named THARO, which has many functions including an
air cleaner, TV and a water purifier in a single platform." Latest news from Spirit and Opportunity
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The News -
Latest News
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Written by William Cox
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Friday, 08 July 2005 |
 News.com has done an excellent interview with iRobot's
Colin Angle. About Roomba, Angle says the "... company has shipped 1.2
million Roombas", and that, "... we'll be announcing an API of sorts
for it." That confirms our earlier post about it.
On the "dissing Japan" front, Angle says, "I think humanoid
robots are interesting and economically irrelevant for the foreseeable
future." Honestly, I think I'd agree.
Angle also makes it clear that iRobot is doing pretty well financially.
He says, "PackBot is a product that's got a price tag of about $120,000
with the
arm on it, and we've got 200 of those things over in Iraq", and that
iRobot has a $50 million dollar contract from the military as part of
the Future Combat Systems push.
And
finally, for all you robot-hopefuls out there, Angle says, " I know a
bunch of venture funds that have money set aside for robots and are
looking for good companies."
Happy robot hacking!
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When I first read that page title on 
