Robotics: The Utility Wave

A segmented tower on a metal and plastic base swiveled

around. Two glowing segments, suggesting a head, tilt forward and speak:

“Hello. My name is Scoty. Let me explain a few things about myself.”

In a vaguely female synthesized voice-but always in plain

English-Scoty, the latest robot from the robotic-toy maker WowWee,

demonstrates its functions for visitors. Chief among these functions are

managing a personal computer's communication and entertainment abilities,

finding and playing songs by voice request, recording television shows, telling

users when they have e-mail, and again by voice request, reading the e-mail

aloud. It takes and then sends voice-to-text e-mail dictation. It takes pictures

and gives the time when asked.

While its name stands for smart companion operating

technology, “Scoty is more of a companion than operating technologies,” said

Richard Yanofsky, president of WowWee, which is based in Hong Kong. For lack of

a better term, he said, Scoty, which is 24 inches tall, is a 'digital maid.'

Robotics makers and experts say that marvelous mechanics

and electronic intelligence are not enough to lure consumers. Robotic novelties

that could command steep prices from some early adopters are giving way to

lower-priced products (though still rather expensive for toys) that offer

personality, utility or both.

Another good deal is the I-Cat, an 'interactive music

companion' from Hasbro's Tiger Electronics brand, a follow-up on last

year's I-Dog, a robotic dog speaker accessory for digital music players. While

both the I-Cat and the I-Dog are furless and highly stylized, both make use of

colored LED lights that are diffused inside their smooth, seamless, and

translucent bodies. Scoty, whose core technologies were developed by Philips

Home Dialogue Systems in Germany, uses the same approach. Its smooth, segmented

body glows with different colors signifying that it is 'listening' to and

'understanding' requests.

“The overall mission is to find ways of bringing robotics

into useful interaction with people,” said Colin Angle, chief executive of

iRobot, the makers of government and industrial robots as well as consumer ones,

including its Roomba series of vacuum cleaners and Scooba floor washers. Angle

said, his company, which is based in Burlington, Mass., near Boston, is less

interested in selling robots to 'gadget people' than to residents of

“Middle America looking for better ways of living their lives and looking for

a little help.”

iRobot's popular consumer robots are shaped like overfed

frisbees and roll inconspicuously on tiny wheels performing their tasks. Angle

said there was little efficiency in building highly functioning robots in

anthropomorphic form. “It's wildly impractical to do so in any real

sense,” he says for organic-looking robots.

iRobot has till date sold more than 1.5 mn Roombas, which

cost about $300, since they were introduced in late 2002. The company reported

revenue of $142 mn in 2005, a 49% increase over 2004. “The simplicity of the

interaction is one of the most critical things,” Angle said.

Going back to Scoty, Yanofsky of WowWee said that his

company had worked hard to ensure that when Scoty was released later this year,

at a price he expected to be $400, it would be simple to set up and operate.

Yanofsky said that WowWee planned to release additional robotic companion

devices in the coming years. “At the end of the day there will be a seamless

interaction with machines in a manner that will be very close to human

experience,” he says. It is a point not lost on a range of robots heading for

store shelves this year.

Source: Yahoo.com



Compiled by Jasmine Kaur


jasminek@cybermedia.co.in