> Are there limits to what I am allowed to do with Spot?
> Spot should never be used to harm or intimidate any person or animal or for any illegal or ultra-hazardous purpose. Our warranty of Spot becomes void and we may disable some or all of its functionality upon any such use.
Asimov's laws are only good for a lifetime writing career in exploring their exceptions. Is there any Asimov story where the laws were applied strictly and successfully? I don't remember one.
I think most of the Robot stories are used to illustrate the woeful logical contradictions in simplistic rule sets. You might be able to extend this idea to how we as people follow the law, whether natural or political.
> I think most of the Robot stories are used to illustrate the woeful logical contradictions in simplistic rule sets.
Literally all of them (from what I remember; it's been awhile since I've read the collection) revolve around problems caused specifically by trying to circumvent or modify the Three Laws, the moral of the stories being "This is why the Three Laws in their specific ordering are necessary for robotics to not bring about the demise of humanity".
It's good that they have this language. My first thought was that some rich asshole would want to "release the hounds" on unwanted visitors, only with machine-gun-equipped deathbots rather than abused, hungry Dobermanns.
It may not be so good if this means they can actually monitor robot use in order to enforce this requirement?
Of interest is that access to the Performance Log is required at "license renewal time [...] before a new key will be issued."
I've not seen other info about their licensing terms but am curious to read those if somebody has a link to those details.
According to the Spot Privacy Notice, Performance Log includes:
- Your robot’s serial number.
- Information about usage such as how long the robot has been operated, how far it walked, how many times it fell, how often a particular API was used.
- When key events like powering on or fault detection occurred.
- Safety-related data such as collisions or falls.
- Usage of the controller application.
- High-level information about maps you collect, such as how many waypoints, how they’re connected, how well Spot understands where it is.
- Details about communications loss events.
Q:
Who will have access to my data?
A:
Access to your data will be limited to Boston Dynamics customer support and individuals related to improving the product.
Q:
Under what circumstances is Spot data transmitted to Boston Dynamics?
A:
Service Logs: Only when explicitly sent by you as part of a service request.
Performance Logs: Regularly and automatically, whenever the tablet is connected to the Internet. [emphasis added]
Q:
Does Boston Dynamics retain my data?
A:
Service Logs: Deleted when a service ticket is resolved.
Performance Logs: Yes, this data is retained as long as it is necessary for performance improvements to Spot robots.
Q:
What if I don’t use the tablet or Android app with Spot?
A:
If you have a Spot Explorer we’ll ask you for your Performance Log at license renewal time. At that point you will have to use Spot’s Android App to transfer the log before a new key will be issued. [emphasis added]
Q:
Does Spot require Internet access?
A:
No. In order to facilitate transmission of diagnostic data we do require you to periodically connect your tablet to the robot, which automatically transfers the data from the robot, and then connect that tablet to the Internet.
I wonder what the software looks like. Is it open source? What kind of network connectivity does it need? What kind of training is needed to program the robot?
The price feels low to me, people pay more for cars.
It's harder to get actors to respond realistically to an animated robot than a physical one. Depending on what you want, I could well see this being cheaper and easier. At the limit, consider if you only need stuff it can do out of box, and BD will lend you one for promotional purposes or you can resell it with minimal depreciation.
Dammit, there's a limit on the number of them you can purchase online at once.
Only two robots may be purchased through the online store.
Please request a quote to get in contact with a sales representative.
Spot® Explorer
Quantity: 101
Price $74,500.00
Total $7,524,500.00
Do they come painted in Dalmatian? How much is delivery? Do they deliver themselves?
These are really expensive, so I think chances are if you need more than 2 then they want to make sure you get a demo with engineers, probably custom contracts/pricing, etc. Probably a fraud prevention thing too given how much money it is.
We've gained nothing from this comment. It is a joke about robots taking over the world. $7.4M number was put in the comment deliberately to get attention and then proceeding to inquire whether it comes in Dalmatian spots painted over. Will they deliver themselves? Perhaps I should respond with "haha"? What should I say?
If this isn't Reddit, may be I need to go there again, perhaps things have improved?
I come on HN to get away from jokes, especially of the type in the parent comment. Allow this and then the top comment in every thread on HN is some form a joke. The internet is filled to the brim with entertainment and jokes. It is nice to come here on HN and participate in intellectual, curious and informative discussion. A little humor here and there is fine.
You cannot realistically expect that all commenters adjust to your particular likes or dislikes. Ironic, because that is exactly how many redditors think.
My impression of the intended rules is that comments need to have "substance" as to constructively carry a conversation. Pointing relevant things out like the price, and making a comment in the form of a joke is perfectly normal in a conversation. You might not have a response but other's may, and indeed you can see a few people continuing the joke for fun.
It's the comments that have no substance, the "no you're wrong" kind that doesn't actually _say_ anything, or specifically baiting for heated responses in flame wars that are issues.
You might not like the jokes, but this type are definitely allowed.
> It is a joke about robots taking over the world. $7.4M number was put in the comment deliberately to get attention and then proceeding to inquire whether it comes in Dalmatian spots painted over
Did you actually miss the 101 Dalmations reference the joke was actually making? I thought it was super clever and nuanced. Much superior to Reddit.
Your robophobic attitude puts you at grave risk of robot attack in the coming AI Revolution, so you should seriously consider Old Glory Robot Insurance.
I challenge it respectfully. I think that guideline and the reasons for it "semi-noob" illusion is condescending IMO.
Imagine a new user enters HN ecosystem. They write a complain about HN turning into Reddit - as they felt and observed. Then they go read the guideline that makes a fool out of them as "semi-noob". I don't think that kind of treatment belongs here.
I fully agree the wording isn't in line with the discouragement of ad homs, comes off condescending to a new user, and should be changed. We shouldn't stigmatize being new, though I do think a list of "stuff so stale you can drive nails with it" is pretty appropriate.
Please don't take my quote as my highlighting the noob bit, as it also made me cringe a little. It's an entirely reasonable opinion that you (and the person who vehemently took up your cause in the comment tree) want a more content-rich thread.
But you have to understand posting that opinion is at least 1:1 comment volume with the thing being complained about--so best case, 100% bloat--and it tends to start a N:1 tree under it, so N-hundred% bloat. What was one content-light joke that would've had a few light replies is now a big discussion and now the thread is very, very content-lean for on-topic discussion.
I think that's why that rule is there, not because your opinion is invalid. If it's really that much of a problem such that the downvotes won't do it, then we need to talk but most threads work fine. Further, complaining about the substance of a comment within the same thread is guaranteed to make the overall situation worse, no matter how valid the complaint, because of the above.
I realize I'm contributing to the content-leanness at this point too, by that definition. However, you do deserve a respectful explanation as to why I felt it was appropriate to reply, and the apology for quoting the poorly-worded rule without trying to somehow acknowledge that. I should have, and I am sorry about that.
I realize that and regret posting it now with all these replies that have nothing to do with BD robots. :-(
Thanks for the explanation and I can see why this whole complaining bit gets old and chewed upon over years. I've personally not stumbled upon anyone that complains about HN turning into Reddit.
Also, I feel out of place because I don't own this forum, don't have a stake in HN moderation and its workings. I don't think I have the right to complain in the first place.
Just felt like saying at the time and it felt right. Appreciate your thoughts and clarification.
A robot that works a 1% the rate is still cost effective if he's 0.9% of the price. Those helicopters are hired at hundreads of thousands of Euros per day and billed for minutes -- they can lift a lot of the materials in a single trip. Probably will have to wait for a more heavy duty Spot though for this use case.
a human porter can carry 30lbs and hike through any mountain trails that this robot can - it'd be a lot cheaper to hire some people than to buy a $70k robot. people can also operate for longer than 90 minutes.
the helicopters are necessary because they need to carry large loads that can't be divided up, which a robot with a 30lb capacity can't help with.
Depends on the country and what they're guarding. Most places you can only fire on people to protect humans and not property so if Spot is the only one there it won't matter anyway.
Plus it could probably kick the shit out of someone if the software allowed it.
Did Royal Caribbean ever get the robotic bartenders to actually work? When I got to see one in action several years ago it spent far more time either outright down or in a half broken state where it messed up orders than it did actually working. Not to mention it being much slower than a human bartender when it was operational.
There is a European company with a similar robot (sorry, can't remember the name, but I have seen the robot up close). They actually have a business model! (BD's business model seems to be asking the DOD for more research funds....)
Anyway, this other company leases them for plant inspections -- think large chemical processing plant inspections. Currently, some person in a hard-hat wanders around the plant looking at gauges and sniffing for leaks every hour. Robot can carry a back-pack full of gas sensors, and a camera that can look at a 25-year-old gauge and feed computer vision OCR software that turns that into a data log.
Could it make it across the big lawn (perhaps dropping a few batteries and electrolyte) and make it to the oval shaped room? I may have a job for Rex...
I would hazard a guess of proprietary form factor and handling needs since these aren't mounted in a car chassis, combined with low production volumes initially.
A _continous_ 9 hour work day. You could alternatively just program it for a 24 hour work cycle, and get the same 9 hour work day on a single battery in segments instead.
EDIT: Nevermind. I assumed that it had the capabilities to dock and charge by itself (just like any robot vacuum does), but apparently it doesn't.
You might get away with 3 (depending on load), but then you would need an additional charger ($1360 each). But there was a reason I use the ~ symbol =). Personally if I were doing this I would get more chargers, but it is really up to the use case. Either way, assuming 5,000 hours/year, you are looking around $20-30/hour of effective cost (depending on what you count for “everything else)
Could a grown man ride it like a horse? This is such a cool, unknown, yet obvious technology but I have no idea what I would use it for. Rescuing people from volcanos? Bringing you a beer? Robot dog races or fights? This is obviously designed for industrial and rescue uses, but I think it could be most successful in the entertainment industry (don't know how ethical that would be though)
Max weight = 14 kg total (30.9 lbs)
Mounting area = 850 mm (L) x 240 mm (W) x 270m m (H)
Mounting interface = M5 T-slot rails
Connector = DB25 (2 ports)
Power supply = Unregulated DC 35-58.8V, 150W per port
Integration = Available software API and hardware interface control documentation
Some comments here show the max payload is too low. But I've had the same thoughts, so what does it take to scale Spot to the size/max payload of a horse?
They had a horse sized payload with the Legged Squad Support system.[1] It worked, but the Marines tried it and it wasn't useful enough. They ended up going with a small ATV for supplies.
(Too noisy, too. A subcontractor was supposed to produce a small, quiet Diesel to power a generator and hydraulic pump, but that never happened. Probably because a small, quiet Diesel is hard. The US military runs on one fuel, JP-8, which works in both aircraft and Diesel engines, so to deploy this, it had to run on JP-8)
As others have said you can't directly ride it (the max payload is too low), but Adam Savage did manage to hook it up to a rickshaw and ride it that way: https://youtu.be/zyaocKS3sfg?t=1358
You'd need 4 -5 of them holding up a palanquin that you sit on.
sibling comment said max weight is 30.9 lbs per SPOT.
So go on a diet, do some ascetic yoga, get down to 150 lbs or so. and then get 4-5 of them holding up your royal vessel.
One of the strangest things I've ever seen was Boston Dynamics doing a Spot demo at a VC summer party at the same time somebody was demoing their next-gen Twitch-streaming drone that could circle around an object (Spot). Spot strutted about while the drone flew around it and streamed the strut to the internet.
All the VCs were rushing to stream themselves while I was thinking "am I seeing the next-gen war technology?"
>> RoboMaster is an annual intercollegiate robot competition held in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China, founded and hosted by the drone tech giant DJI. First started in 2015, it is the brainchild of DJI's founder and CEO Frank Wang, and jointly sponsored by the Communist Youth League Central Committee, the All-China Students' Federation (ACSF) and the Shenzhen City Government. It is the first shooting sport-style robotics competition in China.
>Pauline founded SRL in 1978 and it is considered the premier practitioner of "industrial performing arts", and the forerunner of large scale machine performance. SRL is known for producing the most dangerous shows on earth. Although acknowledged as a major influence on popular competitions pitting remote-controlled robots and machines against each other, such as BattleBots and Robot Wars, Pauline shies away from rules-bound competition preferring a more anarchic approach. Machines are liberated and re-configured away from the functions they were originally meant to perform.
>"With the character of outlaw underground robot maker Slick Henry, William Gibson has immortalized artist Mark Pauline in the novel MONA LISA OVERDRIVE." -Thinking Like a Machine: An Artists Journey into Robotics
>"Pauline builds engines of destruction. He is the founder and director of Survival Research Laboratories, a loosely knit organization which, since 1979, has been perfecting a heavy metal theater of cruelty-scary, stupefyingly loud events in which remote-controlled weaponry, computer-directed robots, and reanimated roadkill do battle in the murk of smoke, flames, and greasy fumes." -Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century
>Survival Research Laboratories Live at the Extreme Futurist Festival, LA, California, Dec 22, 2012. This is the public YouTube debut of this documentary, four years in the making. It chronicles the planning, pre-production, and performance of a full Survival Research Labs show, captured by nineteen cameras.
There are a number of these types of collegiate competitions in China. A student was telling me about one he was working on where you had to optimize missile trajectories to avoid radar detection.
"Spot is not certified safe for in-home use or intended for use near children or others who may not appreciate the hazards associated with its operation."
Recommending there to be no glass in the environment makes sense for liability, but I would have thought a few ultrasound detectors would be sufficient for gross collision avoidance e.g. to avoid walking into a pane. Similarly forward/down-looking sensors should be able to detect ground plane discontinuities. I guess the stereo isn't robust enough to do that reliably.
Yes, that surprised me, too. Cliff detection isn't that hard. They seem to have cameras in the nose area that are positioned to see whether there's a walkable surface ahead. The basic vision system is cameras with IR projection of a pattern, like the original Kinect. How can they do foot placement on stairs while unable to detect cliffs?
There's an optional LIDAR vaguely mentioned in the instructions. No specs on field of view or range, though.
"Spot’s joints can pinch fingers and other body parts and entangle loose clothing, long hair, and jewelry. Only handle Spot when the motors are locked out or robot power is off. Fingers may break or get amputated if caught in joints while Spot’s motors are active." Were pinch points not considered during design?
Jogging/trotting is only available in "demo mode", and is listed as "less stable".
Boston Dynamics can do better than this. I was expecting full Big Dog capability in a smaller package. Maybe this is just the minimum viable product for a market test. If someone finds a use case for this robot, the next model should have those problems fixed.
It's fairly difficult to design a joint with a reasonable amount of motion without pinch points. Though, I'm kinda shocked they don't have detection for current spikes on the controllers so they can limit the damage to anything that is pinched.
End of the day though, how often is the plan to cohabitate a space with humans? My understanding is it is more designed to do monitoring and inspection with maybe some light manipulation tasks. If there's a person along with it why not just have the person do the inspection?
The demo videos have people reasonably close to the robot.[1][2]
It may be difficult to eliminate pinch points, but they need to protect them somehow in the next version. Pinch detectors, bellows, etc. Shear points, where there's a scissors action, should be eliminated.
So the problem they seem to be solving is slowly moving small things short distances across really rough terrain with a power source nearby. I don't see these flying off the shelves.
The bulk of everything else it does could probably be done better with a drone. The only big win for the dog-bot is the 31 pound carry capacity but... I'm not even sure how that is super useful.
Indoor environments where a flying creature is a real hazard, especially since you can't have a drone above people (typically) but you can have a dog robot walking around as long as it's not so slow that it blocks stairs/doorways.
Spot with no load (or minimal load) seems to be pretty fast? I could imagine it could do useful checks around a construction area or an empty building and alert someone if something is off - "Hey, operator, a door was opened and now it's closed."
Obviously it's early tech, we're going to see first wave adopters who have an appetite for experimentation.
Much like drones are much better at most outdoor operations, wheeled robots are much better at most indoor operations. Yes, stairs, etc etc... but if a company has a big enough need for investing in robotics, it's likely they will be willing to invest in the infrastructure (ramps, etc) to support those robots.
Also, consider for a moment the following from Boston Dynamics:
> Spot should always be operated at least two meters away from people
That alone eliminates something like 95% of workplaces.
Flying drones have major endurance issues, especially if they need to carry anything beyond an extra battery. This can last 90 minutes on a 4.2 kg battery and presumably extend that to 4.5 hours at the cost of ~60% carrying capacity. Drones also have trouble applying forces do do stuff like open doors.
75k seems like a much bugger issue in terms of general use, but that can probably drop a lot over time.
What's the point of lasting 3 times longer if you are moving 5-10 times slower? Even if you double the endurance of the Spot, you are still covering the same amount of ground that a much more affordable drone could cover.
At 75,000$ using a person is almost always going to be a better solution right now. Even above 20k I suspect it’s mostly just people doing R&D. However, that is kind of like looking at the first version of the segway and ignoring the cheap ”hoveboards” that showed up at 1/60th the price. At say 1,000$ you can bet some people would use them for dog walking.
> However, that is kind of like looking at the first version of the segway and ignoring the cheap ”hoveboards” that showed up at 1/60th the price. At say 1,000$ you can bet some people would use them for dog walking.
The Segway was from the get go a product with immediate and obvious uses. It didn't take off the way Kamen thought it would, but it was a product. This by contrast is barely a product at all, it's almost 100% a research tool. Even most of the people who use this thread suggest as much.
I’m pretty sure the main use is observing dangerous environments like mines, places with toxic waste, and oil rigs. The payload will usually be used for sensors or a door opening device, not to transport cargo.
> observing dangerous environments like mines, places with toxic waste, and oil rigs.
This could be a good use. Mines in particular where drones would be impractical. I'm not so sure about oil rigs, while Spot would be great on the stairs/ terrain, it has trouble with seeing the edge of cliffs and might well march right off into the ocean.
Probably the biggest advantage would be the ability to take samples or hold some kind of special equipment.
In fact, there is a startup called Exyn Technologies which tackles the problem of deploying autonomous drones in mines and other such dangerous environments (https://www.exyn.com/)!
So amazon could load 10 of these in a self driving truck and do same day/all night delivery 24/7. They'd only need to figure out a way to get the dogs to pick up and drop the packages. The truck could leave the 'procurement center' loaded with all the packages and make the rounds. The dogs could recharge whenever they return to the truck.
That's an incredible idea, and the question isn't "What's the lowest hourly wage they could pay someone across the internet to control one of these dogs?" but "How much would people be willing to pay for the fun of completing 'missions' where they guide the dog to a customer's front door and back?"
You'll likely see these things augmenting expensive skilled employees by carrying their engine driven welders and air compressors around job-sites before you see them doing low margin delivery work. Most technology moves from high margin industries (where the cost per operating hour of an employee is higher and therefore easier to beat) to low margin industries.
At 30lb payload, it's not carrying any welder or compressor I've ever worked with. More like fetching a socket from the toolbox that's not quite in reach, but to accomplish those sorts of small and somewhat random tasks is going to require quite a bit more NLP than we've been able to do so far.
Probably also features the plasticky hollow frail feeling of most chinese knockoffs. Still, if anybody wants to buy 7 of these and pit them against 1 Spot, I'd watch that :)
For researchers like me it’s an easy way to get a legged robot that just works for fairly cheap. One can then focus on perception/decision/control etc. without being a mechanical engineer.
You can always buy and mount the lidar yourself. It is cheap for a working legged robot of this quality. Others (anymal comes to mind) are much more than that.
Not sure this take feels right but it doesn't really feel sufficient to say "this time is different" either. It's pretty easy to come up with dozens of military based use cases but really difficult to find commercial ones. Possible use cases for say delivery still rely on human drivers (in delivery vans) or tele-operators for example so it's not clear there's a business case for using them.
This seems like the mother of all selection biases to me. Of course you remember the Apple ][ because it was one of the first products in what became a wildly successful market. How many flying car prototypes do you remember? There have been several, and a whole new batch of electric versions are being designed right now, but so far people have been quite rightly skeptical of that product for the last 70+ years.
I remember watching the price of laser printers drop. I was in a computer store once and I was examining a $10,000 model once. A salesman approached and I told him once the price drops below $1500 I am getting one. He actually laughed at me and a nearby customer weighed in I'd be waiting for a lifetime or more.
Truth is I think it was three or four years before I bought a $1495 LaserJet, still have it in fact. So when Spot drops to $7500 I am getting one, just to freak out my neighbors!
Where I live people try to one up each other with exotic breeds of dog. I want to just blow peoples minds as I call it with my smartphone, it descends the stairs and then opens the door for me. Then I ask them, can your dog do that?
Secretly I want one so I can write code to teach it 'tricks' :<).
When I worked at best buy in early college I remember at $15,000 50 inch LCD. Hung there for like a year until a model half the price replaced it and actually started selling.
222 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 255 ms ] thread> Are there limits to what I am allowed to do with Spot?
> Spot should never be used to harm or intimidate any person or animal or for any illegal or ultra-hazardous purpose. Our warranty of Spot becomes void and we may disable some or all of its functionality upon any such use.
_should_
(As all Asimov's Robot stories pointed out)
Literally all of them (from what I remember; it's been awhile since I've read the collection) revolve around problems caused specifically by trying to circumvent or modify the Three Laws, the moral of the stories being "This is why the Three Laws in their specific ordering are necessary for robotics to not bring about the demise of humanity".
It may not be so good if this means they can actually monitor robot use in order to enforce this requirement?
So Spots are connected back to Boston Dynamics (like Teslas to Tesla) and they can brick your device anytime?
What kind of metrics are they collecting?
For lesser violations they can make it temporarily play dead.
Of interest is that access to the Performance Log is required at "license renewal time [...] before a new key will be issued."
I've not seen other info about their licensing terms but am curious to read those if somebody has a link to those details.
According to the Spot Privacy Notice, Performance Log includes: - Your robot’s serial number. - Information about usage such as how long the robot has been operated, how far it walked, how many times it fell, how often a particular API was used. - When key events like powering on or fault detection occurred. - Safety-related data such as collisions or falls. - Usage of the controller application. - High-level information about maps you collect, such as how many waypoints, how they’re connected, how well Spot understands where it is. - Details about communications loss events.
Q: Who will have access to my data? A: Access to your data will be limited to Boston Dynamics customer support and individuals related to improving the product.
Q: Under what circumstances is Spot data transmitted to Boston Dynamics? A: Service Logs: Only when explicitly sent by you as part of a service request. Performance Logs: Regularly and automatically, whenever the tablet is connected to the Internet. [emphasis added]
Q: Does Boston Dynamics retain my data? A: Service Logs: Deleted when a service ticket is resolved. Performance Logs: Yes, this data is retained as long as it is necessary for performance improvements to Spot robots.
Q: What if I don’t use the tablet or Android app with Spot? A: If you have a Spot Explorer we’ll ask you for your Performance Log at license renewal time. At that point you will have to use Spot’s Android App to transfer the log before a new key will be issued. [emphasis added]
Q: Does Spot require Internet access? A: No. In order to facilitate transmission of diagnostic data we do require you to periodically connect your tablet to the robot, which automatically transfers the data from the robot, and then connect that tablet to the Internet.
[1] https://www.bostondynamics.com/spot/privacy-notice
The price feels low to me, people pay more for cars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-PdPtqw78k
Not any business.
If this isn't Reddit, may be I need to go there again, perhaps things have improved?
I come on HN to get away from jokes, especially of the type in the parent comment. Allow this and then the top comment in every thread on HN is some form a joke. The internet is filled to the brim with entertainment and jokes. It is nice to come here on HN and participate in intellectual, curious and informative discussion. A little humor here and there is fine.
HN may be serious, but we're not entirely humorless.
> HN may be serious, but we're not entirely humorless.
I can agree with that, a little sprinkle of tasteful humor doesn't hurt even thought it doesn't add anything meaningful to the discussion. Totally ok.
It's the comments that have no substance, the "no you're wrong" kind that doesn't actually _say_ anything, or specifically baiting for heated responses in flame wars that are issues.
You might not like the jokes, but this type are definitely allowed.
Also, is reddit the only other site on the internet with a comment section? Why is Reddit specifically relevant here?
The poster gave a detailed explanation of their point of view. This sort of low effort insult is not appropriate.
Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Guidelines are great and I usually abide by them, once in a while there is a reason to break them and I've substantiated those reasons.
Consider my take on this as a form of protest against the eroding quality of HN discussions.
Did you actually miss the 101 Dalmations reference the joke was actually making? I thought it was super clever and nuanced. Much superior to Reddit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXrbqXPnHvE
Must you condemn them to menial lives of eternal servitude?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXsUetUzXlg
Your robophobic attitude puts you at grave risk of robot attack in the coming AI Revolution, so you should seriously consider Old Glory Robot Insurance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Gh_IcK8UM
Use the following discount code and you will receive your first month's robot insurance at half price: "NOROBO"
Exactly. The top comment is typically not a joke on most posts.
I'm sad to see the top comment is a joke and no one is really seriously talking about what they could do. Which I think currently is little.
They'll probably cost $100,000 a year to manage and I'm not sure outside of meta entertainment what they can do.
They have no finger dexterity, no intelligence.
People seem to think they have everything a dog or even a human has. They don't.
> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Imagine a new user enters HN ecosystem. They write a complain about HN turning into Reddit - as they felt and observed. Then they go read the guideline that makes a fool out of them as "semi-noob". I don't think that kind of treatment belongs here.
Please don't take my quote as my highlighting the noob bit, as it also made me cringe a little. It's an entirely reasonable opinion that you (and the person who vehemently took up your cause in the comment tree) want a more content-rich thread.
But you have to understand posting that opinion is at least 1:1 comment volume with the thing being complained about--so best case, 100% bloat--and it tends to start a N:1 tree under it, so N-hundred% bloat. What was one content-light joke that would've had a few light replies is now a big discussion and now the thread is very, very content-lean for on-topic discussion.
I think that's why that rule is there, not because your opinion is invalid. If it's really that much of a problem such that the downvotes won't do it, then we need to talk but most threads work fine. Further, complaining about the substance of a comment within the same thread is guaranteed to make the overall situation worse, no matter how valid the complaint, because of the above.
I realize I'm contributing to the content-leanness at this point too, by that definition. However, you do deserve a respectful explanation as to why I felt it was appropriate to reply, and the apology for quoting the poorly-worded rule without trying to somehow acknowledge that. I should have, and I am sorry about that.
Thanks for the explanation and I can see why this whole complaining bit gets old and chewed upon over years. I've personally not stumbled upon anyone that complains about HN turning into Reddit.
Also, I feel out of place because I don't own this forum, don't have a stake in HN moderation and its workings. I don't think I have the right to complain in the first place.
Just felt like saying at the time and it felt right. Appreciate your thoughts and clarification.
the helicopters are necessary because they need to carry large loads that can't be divided up, which a robot with a 30lb capacity can't help with.
With improvements in programming, that's not necessarily true considering they have four legs.
> people can also operate for longer than 90 minutes.
Note that the 90 minutes is without payload. With payload it's likely much shorter.
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.220510.html
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/20908/why-are-st-bernard...
if not simply going through a building looking for people or stuff that should not be there.
https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/180319-b...
I could also see Royal Caribbean buying them as novelties to go along with their robotic bartenders on their oasis class ships.
Plus it could probably kick the shit out of someone if the software allowed it.
Anyway, this other company leases them for plant inspections -- think large chemical processing plant inspections. Currently, some person in a hard-hat wanders around the plant looking at gauges and sniffing for leaks every hour. Robot can carry a back-pack full of gas sensors, and a camera that can look at a 25-year-old gauge and feed computer vision OCR software that turns that into a data log.
Edit: My brain woke up. Here it is: https://www.anybotics.com/anymal-legged-robot/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalhead_(Black_Mirror)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM3GM299orc
It doesn't often happen but that episode genuinely gave me the heebies.
Some of the autonomous micro drone stuff is also pretty scary. I think there is a (fake) youtube vid about them that's pretty scary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM
[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA
Battery capacity = 605 Wh
Average runtime (no payload) = 90 mins Recharge time = 120 mins
So you basically have to buy ~4 batteries ($4620 each) to get a 9 hour work day out of them...
https://about.bnef.com/blog/behind-scenes-take-lithium-ion-b...
A _continous_ 9 hour work day. You could alternatively just program it for a 24 hour work cycle, and get the same 9 hour work day on a single battery in segments instead.
EDIT: Nevermind. I assumed that it had the capabilities to dock and charge by itself (just like any robot vacuum does), but apparently it doesn't.
Max weight = 14 kg total (30.9 lbs) Mounting area = 850 mm (L) x 240 mm (W) x 270m m (H) Mounting interface = M5 T-slot rails Connector = DB25 (2 ports) Power supply = Unregulated DC 35-58.8V, 150W per port Integration = Available software API and hardware interface control documentation
https://shop.bostondynamics.com/DefaultStore/spot?cclcl=en_U...
[0] https://www.starwars.com/databank/at-at-walker/
(Too noisy, too. A subcontractor was supposed to produce a small, quiet Diesel to power a generator and hydraulic pump, but that never happened. Probably because a small, quiet Diesel is hard. The US military runs on one fuel, JP-8, which works in both aircraft and Diesel engines, so to deploy this, it had to run on JP-8)
[1] https://youtu.be/LIaXEMOhihw
"Adam Savage's Spot Robot Rickshaw Carriage!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyaocKS3sfg
sibling comment said max weight is 30.9 lbs per SPOT. So go on a diet, do some ascetic yoga, get down to 150 lbs or so. and then get 4-5 of them holding up your royal vessel.
All the VCs were rushing to stream themselves while I was thinking "am I seeing the next-gen war technology?"
Did you see any coverage of Robomasters?
Some light starter material from The Verge in 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECr4zgK6cPA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboMaster
>> RoboMaster is an annual intercollegiate robot competition held in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China, founded and hosted by the drone tech giant DJI. First started in 2015, it is the brainchild of DJI's founder and CEO Frank Wang, and jointly sponsored by the Communist Youth League Central Committee, the All-China Students' Federation (ACSF) and the Shenzhen City Government. It is the first shooting sport-style robotics competition in China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_combat
(It looks like RoboMaster is bigger in terms of the number of participants and spectators.)
http://www.srl.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Pauline
>Pauline founded SRL in 1978 and it is considered the premier practitioner of "industrial performing arts", and the forerunner of large scale machine performance. SRL is known for producing the most dangerous shows on earth. Although acknowledged as a major influence on popular competitions pitting remote-controlled robots and machines against each other, such as BattleBots and Robot Wars, Pauline shies away from rules-bound competition preferring a more anarchic approach. Machines are liberated and re-configured away from the functions they were originally meant to perform.
https://books.google.nl/books?id=AI1sDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT54&lpg=PT...
>"With the character of outlaw underground robot maker Slick Henry, William Gibson has immortalized artist Mark Pauline in the novel MONA LISA OVERDRIVE." -Thinking Like a Machine: An Artists Journey into Robotics
https://books.google.nl/books?id=_riKAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT158&lpg=P...
>"Pauline builds engines of destruction. He is the founder and director of Survival Research Laboratories, a loosely knit organization which, since 1979, has been perfecting a heavy metal theater of cruelty-scary, stupefyingly loud events in which remote-controlled weaponry, computer-directed robots, and reanimated roadkill do battle in the murk of smoke, flames, and greasy fumes." -Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJFmGu28HVQ
>Survival Research Laboratories Live at the Extreme Futurist Festival, LA, California, Dec 22, 2012. This is the public YouTube debut of this documentary, four years in the making. It chronicles the planning, pre-production, and performance of a full Survival Research Labs show, captured by nineteen cameras.
https://www.youtube.com/user/survivalresearchlabs/videos
>(lots more disturbing content in SRL's video list)
- pinch points and other safe handling concerns
- it cannot perceive glass windows or the edge of a cliff
- "entertainment" is mentioned as a possible application, but you should not operate it near pets or children
https://www.bostondynamics.com/sites/default/files/inline-fi...
There's an optional LIDAR vaguely mentioned in the instructions. No specs on field of view or range, though.
"Spot’s joints can pinch fingers and other body parts and entangle loose clothing, long hair, and jewelry. Only handle Spot when the motors are locked out or robot power is off. Fingers may break or get amputated if caught in joints while Spot’s motors are active." Were pinch points not considered during design?
Jogging/trotting is only available in "demo mode", and is listed as "less stable".
Boston Dynamics can do better than this. I was expecting full Big Dog capability in a smaller package. Maybe this is just the minimum viable product for a market test. If someone finds a use case for this robot, the next model should have those problems fixed.
It's fairly difficult to design a joint with a reasonable amount of motion without pinch points. Though, I'm kinda shocked they don't have detection for current spikes on the controllers so they can limit the damage to anything that is pinched.
End of the day though, how often is the plan to cohabitate a space with humans? My understanding is it is more designed to do monitoring and inspection with maybe some light manipulation tasks. If there's a person along with it why not just have the person do the inspection?
It may be difficult to eliminate pinch points, but they need to protect them somehow in the next version. Pinch detectors, bellows, etc. Shear points, where there's a scissors action, should be eliminated.
[1] https://www.facebook.com/howthingsworkgif/videos/30875769913...
[2] https://youtu.be/VRm7oRCTkjE
The bulk of everything else it does could probably be done better with a drone. The only big win for the dog-bot is the 31 pound carry capacity but... I'm not even sure how that is super useful.
Spot with no load (or minimal load) seems to be pretty fast? I could imagine it could do useful checks around a construction area or an empty building and alert someone if something is off - "Hey, operator, a door was opened and now it's closed."
Obviously it's early tech, we're going to see first wave adopters who have an appetite for experimentation.
[Youtube warning] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-PdPtqw78k
Also, consider for a moment the following from Boston Dynamics:
> Spot should always be operated at least two meters away from people
That alone eliminates something like 95% of workplaces.
Not currently, as people also operate at least two meters away from people.
75k seems like a much bugger issue in terms of general use, but that can probably drop a lot over time.
What's the point of lasting 3 times longer if you are moving 5-10 times slower? Even if you double the endurance of the Spot, you are still covering the same amount of ground that a much more affordable drone could cover.
> However, that is kind of like looking at the first version of the segway and ignoring the cheap ”hoveboards” that showed up at 1/60th the price. At say 1,000$ you can bet some people would use them for dog walking.
The Segway was from the get go a product with immediate and obvious uses. It didn't take off the way Kamen thought it would, but it was a product. This by contrast is barely a product at all, it's almost 100% a research tool. Even most of the people who use this thread suggest as much.
This could be a good use. Mines in particular where drones would be impractical. I'm not so sure about oil rigs, while Spot would be great on the stairs/ terrain, it has trouble with seeing the edge of cliffs and might well march right off into the ocean.
Probably the biggest advantage would be the ability to take samples or hold some kind of special equipment.
[0] https://youtu.be/2H3dzZEi-qw
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/unitree-new-robot-dog-compar...
[2] http://www.unitree.cc/product/
That's about 1/7 the weight of Spot, so ~7x the cost seems about right.
So the A1 is 36% of Spot's weight.
-- some pundit in 1977, probably
Truth is I think it was three or four years before I bought a $1495 LaserJet, still have it in fact. So when Spot drops to $7500 I am getting one, just to freak out my neighbors!
Secretly I want one so I can write code to teach it 'tricks' :<).