Saturday, March 13, 2004

White Box Robotics.  Making robots inexpensive, simple to modify, and powerful. Our platform, or "rig" as we call it, is based off of standard PC architecture. Similar to an industry standard PC case in construction, almost any off-the-shelf PC hardware can be used on the 912 platform with little or no modification. HMV security robot (with the same paint as the Hummer). 4:24:31 PM    Comment_ Trackback []

Looks like Ross Mayfield has assumed my role as the champion of weblogs in business. 2:50:52 PM    Comment_ Trackback []

Doug reports that all the vehicles in the DARPA Grand Challenge have either broken down or withdrawn.  Nobody won. 2:39:20 PM    Comment_ Trackback []

"The business of America is business."  Calvin Coolidge. 2:23:19 PM    Comment_ Trackback []

Weblog coverage of the DARPA Grand Challenge  Dann Sheridan is going to blog the DARPA grand challenge with pictures.  Doug Kaye is going to team up with him and will run a live audio stream.  Nice!  12:57:43 PM    Comment_ Trackback []

Robotics and US competitiveness  Robotics are starting to take off (with new entrants such as Toyota). The market for personal and mobile robots could grow to $5.4 billion this year and become larger than the industrial, nonmobile robot market, according to Dan Kara, president of Robotics Trends, which holds conferences and promotes the industry. By 2010, that figure will approach $17 billion, Kara said.  While some say such projections are overly optimistic, Kara can point to anecdotal evidence that robot fever is catching. About 68,000 attended Robodex in Japan last year, he said, and the sales numbers of Roomba and da Vinci are tough to argue with. Some thoughts: This "industry of the future" is too small to drive the US economy until the next decade.  Robots provide a way to move computers into physical work.  An interesting graph would be a job by job analysis that shows when robots will become cost effective vs. US workers and finally workers in developing countries. A better way to look at robots in the economy is through a RNP (robotic national product) and robotic productivity stats.  A key advantage is that the cost threshold for robotic usage will be reached much sooner in the US than in developing countries.  This will enable the US to ride the wave of improvement in robotic/computer technology much sooner than global rivals.  Note:  strong unions in the EU will likely slow adoption of robotics there. 12:44:17 PM    Comment_ Trackback []

Schrecklichkeit.  8:47:15 AM    Comment_ Trackback []