CES 2010 rundown - Part2.

Man. I can't believe it's gonna go down this way. Next up on the evisceration list?

Robotics.

I could have gotten a better picture of this product called the I-Fairy, but some part of me marveled at the sadness of a guy interviewing what was basically an animatronic puppet. They are using the term "robot" so loosely - it's laughable. It didn't respond to conversation. It had canned audio. It didn't respond to movement. It had canned movement. You know the product can't be that good when I can't even find a youtube video for it. If you want to check out their site be my guest. Here.

And, when you consider the millions of dollars of research that has been placed into the this sector - they should never have spent the money to fly to the US. Especially when robots like the Roboware E3 from previous shows were starting to come so close to what I can see consumers buying. Video here. I blogged about the machine here in 2008. The problem has always been price, market penetration, and functionality.

None of the guys from any of the robotics conferences I've ever been at, were at CES this year. None of them. People who have been working on this stuff for at least 7 years. Probably longer. But I've been tracking them that long. Not even the Microsoft Robotics Studio was there.

Although Mr S. told me they were still hawking that ridiculous robotic seal from 2004. I blogged about it here.

The whole thing was horribly depressing. The field actually seems to be regressing rather than just stopping and taking a break. Really, really childish amateurish types of products. These are things I would have expected to see at RoboDevelopment 1.

Sure you say - they must be for kids. Right? These items wouldn't have held a three year olds interest for more than a few minutes. I didn't even take pictures. Maybe if I become motivated I'll hunt down what other people covered from the show.

I talked to one vendor - whom I'm not going to even name. They really seemed like the nicest people in the world, and I really liked them. They were demo'ing an elder robot that carried things around. Basically a rolling box. I'm telling you right now, I'm not even here to mock them. I just felt bad about their product. I wanted to tell them they were wasting their money doing on what they were doing. They were out of their league.

They were trying to recreate the wheel. But, who am I to tell them anything, anyway? No one.

I just can't even tell you how many products have come and gone. Some with promise, but didn't catch for whatever reason.

These people. So nice. But, really, really out of their league. It was depressing.

I think that is all I have on this subject. Yet, it's one subject that stings the most. For years I've believed we are right on the cusp of something great. Now I wonder if we aren't in the death rattle. For a while at least. Mostly due to the insane complexities of consumer adoption and functionality. But, also due to the recession. Robotics is just something which is a vast money pit. That doesn't exist right now.

But again. Who am I? Maybe I'm wrong.

A Robomower Rant

As you may have guessed, we at the Snarkolepsy household are early adopters of technology, especially home robotics. Roombas, Scoobas, Lawn mowers, gutter cleaners, we've got 'em.

And I'm generally pretty forgiving of version 1.0 of any product. I accept that the first version is going to have issues. But I expect version 2.0 of the product to be noticeably better. e.g. the current generation of Roomba is noticeably better than the earlier versions.

Which brings us to robot lawn mowers, specifically the Friendly Robotics robomowers.

We initially purchased an RL550 model (which we named "Moe") back in 2004 (read about it here)

When Moe died in 2008, we upgraded to a later model (an RL850, named "Shemp")

Sadly, there's no improvement in the usability of the later model. It works exactly the same as the previous one, it just costs more.

The biggest issue is manual mowing. There are always places where the mower misses spots b/c of lawn obstacles (trees, walls, ditches, etc), and you have to go back and drive the mower manually around these spots to get them. The problem is the mechanism provided to pilot the mower manually is something that looks like an Xbox controller. You have to use a joystick/thumbpad to steer while pushing two other buttons simultaneously to mow. No one who has ever tried to do this can possibly think it's a good idea. This stupid controller gives me a hand cramp every time I have to use it.

I'm not convinced that the people at Friendly Robotics actually ever use the product they sell, b/c otherwise they would have fixed this stupid system before releasing new models.

And all the other robot-mower makers use a similar system too (some kind of remote control joystick)

Hey Robot Mower makers - you know what would be better? Handle bars! Just like a regular lawnmower. When I have to run it manually, just let me use it like a regular mower.

A solution in search of a problem. Part 3.

You may be asking yourself if there was anything at the show I did find interesting.

Yes. There were two things. A product from Velodyne Lidar Inc. I think Lidar is a promising arena, but I'm not sure how they will get it to stick to robotics. I mean.. I see the applications - but, I'm not sure if this will be the tipping point product.



The Lidar was tracking all the people in the convention.



A demo they were doing with possible applications for its use. And, the lidar system.



Underwater rovers normally might not have interested me - but they have become really advanced. This was just a component company. But, I recently starting thinking the field has promise. Wireless has advanced far enough that rovers can obtain large amounts of underwater data and send it to the surface. Long gone are the days of the giant rovers with humans piloting them.



Part 1 here and 2 here.

A solution in search of a problem. Part 2.

Part 1 here.

Today I was reading reviews on the RoboDevelopment conference. I got this gem from Marketwatch.

"Robotics have certainly come a long way in the past decade. Tandy Trower, general manager of Microsoft's robotics initiative, said hardware costs have dropped drastically. "

Yes.. the robotics industry has come a long way in the last decade - but has done almost squat in the last four years. It's surprising for exactly the reason Mr Trower says. Hardware costs. It is amazing how cheap they've become. Yet the industry still lacks any discernible direction. I'd always assumed that the industry was stalled because the prices of components were too expensive. Now, it is apparent this was not the bottleneck. It is a lack of good ideas. Until some quantum shift occurs (perhaps from software) this industry seems unable to to find a foothold in any market.

Back to the show.

I've grown skeptical of the walking robots. Which is why it is important to show them working. I walked by this thing 10 times, and I never saw it move. It is from a company called Aldebaran Robotics I've never heard of them before. It looks good, but I have tons of pictures of toy concepts that I never saw again. A demonstration of the grasping ability would have been nice.



This was a mechanical bear from The Personal Robotics Group at MIT. Which would be fine. Though, I'm not sure why they continue to pursue this market.



My pictures of the Mechanical Seal from RoboNexus 2004.



Doing a quick Google search, that product basically went nowhere. But, maybe if we make it look like a children's bear - it will take off.

Look - I know I'm being bitchy about this whole thing - but you have to have the intelligence of a three year old to be captivated by these products. And I'm actually being generous. 3 year olds are super smart these days. The old and infirm can get little use out of these products. And just as a side note - have you seen how well functioning octogenarians are these days?

Moble Robots was there. They are a mainstay. I presume they are making money because they are at most of the shows. Although, again - not much has changed.

My pictures from RoboNexus 05.





Pictures from RoboDevelopment 08'.



It does seem like they've added a user interface on some of their platforms. Perhaps it was working when the press was there, but I didn't see it working.



Lidar seems to be the big thing this year.



Update: I guess this is stereo vision rather than Lidar.

A solution in search of a problem.

Today I went out to the RoboDevelopment conference. I'm going to start out with the best stuff. My mood falls precipitously off a cliff from there. I've been going to these types conferences for 4 or 5 years. Some years I'm very hopeful on where the field is going. This year, I'm pretty sure the future is never going to get here. The first few years were littered with wide eyed enthusiasm. There were lots of ideas of how robots were going to make our lives easier. This year was disappointing in its complete lack of direction.

I'd ask vendor after vendor "what application do you see your product being useful for"? Remarkably, time after time the response was "whatever you want it to be". I started seeing this trend pop up two years ago. But, this year - it was the dominating trend. Which would be fine - but, I don't see that as a money making venture. And yes.. people. Your job is to make money. You've put your foot into the hobbyist arena. That marketplace does not allow you to survive.

I go to these things hoping to see some break away product. Praying that I see something that might appeal to a large market. Usually I just have to be happy seeing the same vendor twice. Which is where I was today.

This was the first thing I saw when I walked in. I remembered it immediately from CES. I didn't post any of my robot pictures from CES this year. I went the last day, and by the time I got all my pictures unpacked everyone was over it.



But, I remember taking a lot of photos of this thing though. I was fascinated because it was running a windows OS. It also looked like a product people might buy. They didn't have it running at CES. But, it seemed marketable.



So, I was delighted to see it today. I don't know how much they are charging for it, but I think it has some features that can keep children captivated for a while. It was pretending to be involved in the conversation these two guys were having.



I would have liked to see how it ran without being tethered. But, it played music, and danced. Which didn't seem immediately lame. It seemed to have good voice recognition and human interaction. It didn't fall over like some of its competitors.

Their company website could really use some work. You can check it out here. Instead of computer renderings of the product, it seemed to perform well enough for actual video. And the site just seems a little creepy and uninviting. The product didn't seem anything like what the website portrays.

Robogames 2008 review.

Look - I'm not going to bitch (much) about the games this year. They've gotten my money 3 years in a row. Chances are... I'll be there next year. This is why.

It is more important for me to see how robotics are being marketed and where the industry might be headed. I can go to the same event year after year, and the focus is always different. It is somewhat more interesting to see the vacillation of the industry to gain a foothold. As meager as those footholds are.

This year the Robogames seemed all about robot kits. With a big focus on walking robots. Which is actually what I was most interested in anyway. But, also what depressed me the most. On one hand - they have made them look much more marketable. But act much less functional.



If you want a toy to wave and make hand gestures. Well, they have you covered. If you are actually interested in something that doesn't spend most of the time on its back. Move along people. Nothing to see here. There really has been very little progress from a year ago.

These bots were saying "hey - first you fall over, then I'll fall over". I swear, they spent very little time on their feet. And for 300 - 700 bucks.. I'd think people might sort of like that.



Thankfully children have a huge capacity to right things that have fallen over. They never seem to get bored with it.



Robotis seemed to be the biggest vendor at the show. The company confused me. The toy bots seemed to be geared for a 5 year old, but to be able to put the kits together - it seemed like you needed to be at least 12.



The sad thing is that Hitec is there every year. They do walking really well, but they have all but given up marketing their product. They normally have one guy, and you are lucky if they have one bot running. If they hadn't impressed me so much at RoboNexus years ago - honestly, I wouldn't have much good to say about them.



I thought I had pictures of the RoboNexus demonstration on the blog. Until I find them, you will just have to watch the You Tube video here.

They did have something new this year though. I guess they are trying to capitalize on the theory everyone wants a remote presence robot. So tons of robots now have mini cameras in them. The product from Hitec was no exception.



Stuff for little kids seemed to be a big focus. This was also from Robotis.



None of the people who supplied any of the loosely categorized robotic art were there this year. And, honestly this was the best I got.



Now, the art stuff isn't my thing - but integrated circuit boards with blinky lights. Really? That's the best they got? And... I'm ... into ... blinky lights! I can see all that stuff at flea markets. So I didn't even take any pictures.



These guys are a hold over from Maker Faire. But - I like balls.



I'm not really sure what this thing is, but I've seen a a few times. It does have a description. But ya'all know I'm illiterate.

Now onto what the Robogames are really all about - the battlebots. I'd long since given up on trying to get photo's of them. Trying to take pictures through scratched up lexan doesn't make for very useful pictures. It might have been better this year because they stated a photo policy on the entry door about the use of flash. Which I loved. More places should post their photo policy. But, the battlebots were the main draw this year, and I couldn't get close. They actually had much more people in the stands than the years I've attended. Good for them. You can see last year here.

Oh! I almost forgot the Star Wars guys.

We'd like you to meet your replacement.

Everyone knows when you bring a new pet robot home - there is an awkward period of adjustment.

We've named him Shemp.

Coordination still has a little way to go.

I spent a great deal of time at the Anybots booth. As I said in my earlier entry - I'm seeing a great push for the elder care/robotic assistance market. If you are into robotics - this is no news flash. Articles are full of people speculating about this market. I've been to a lot of robotics shows however, and this was the first one that seemed very focused on this market.

I also think this is the most complicated area to capture.

Some large shift in size and pricing will need to happen, before this segment will really come into itself. Personally, I think the push forward in this technology will come from amputees like Professor Hugh Herr. Veterans of the war, and larger acceptance of people with disabilities.

I'm not going to get into a debate about rolling or walking robots.. because I just don't care. My main focus is the technology that drives the newer prosthesis will also help make things cheaper for the robotics field.

Anyway.. back to the Anybots booth. Where they were demo'ing their humanoid robot.





The robot is controlled by one or both of these guys at the monitors.

This is the bot trying to pick up a ball.










It did take several minutes to achieve its goal, but I think working out realistic thumb operation was the bottleneck.

You will own a robot.

Today was Robo Developement day.

Even though it had an extremely small show floor, I'm glad I went.

Since the robotics field still is relatively in the infancy phase, you never really know what you are going to get when you show up at these things.

I'm not sure if it was intentional, but this show had an obvious theme. Robots will be wiping your ass some day. Okay - maybe that wasn't the intended theme. But it was pretty obvious the robotics field is trying to move more towards assisting humans.

Hopefully chicks will start getting into the field, because all men really want is a robot to get them beer.

Anyway.. lets look at the pictures. Shall we?



This bot was out of the Microsoft Robotic Studio Booth.





I didn't get the names of either of these companies. But, arms and hands were a big theme.





This bot was out of Willow Garage. Also see CNET write-up. Hopefully you can see the machine is doing the vacuuming.



This was from Segway. The reps appropriately arrived on Segways.



More tomorrow.