it's getting closer...

[the big lebowski]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...1740&ncid=1729

[arcatacat]

Originally Posted by the big lebowski

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...1740&ncid=1729

I was just going to post this... Here are some excerpts, highlighted where there is a DANGER ZONE:

If there's not a robot in your home already, there will be one soon. Odds are pretty good there's one living on your block right now. They move, they think, they clean, they entertain. And they do it all (mostly) without your help. But we've just scratched the surface of what these intelligent devices can do. Newer, cooler choices are on the way.

1.5 million Roombas have been sold to date, and manufacturer IRobot went on to develop the Scooba floor-washing robot. WowWee has rolled out a new generation of robot toys, with still more interesting products in the works.

But the gee-whiz days of robots may be over: Now things are getting serious.

Scoty Plays Your Music

At the International Toy Fair in New York last month, WowWee also previewed Scoty, a distinctly non-humanoid robot developed with Philips Electronics (it looks like a vertical stack of lighted panels that glow and move in response to stimuli). Expected to sell for about $400, Scoty is an intelligent media hub that can play music from your computer. It responds to voice commands and will read your e-mail to you. Scoty even recognizes and acknowledges faces.

Ugobe's Stern expects to see significant developments in robotics in the next five to ten years, and believes that the gap between service and entertainment robots will start to close.

But let's face it: If a robotic dinosaur starts chewing on the furniture, all bets are off. The backlash could be severe.