Visitors Now:
Total Visits:
Total Stories:
Profile image
By Next Big Future (Reporter)
Contributor profile | More stories
Story Views

Now:
Last Hour:
Last 24 Hours:
Total:

Rethink Robotics Baxter is about 20 times cheaper than Willow Garage PR2 and can work for $4 per hour

Wednesday, September 19, 2012 7:33
% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.

(Before It's News)

From NextBigFuture.com

NY TimesRethink Robotics Baxter, comes encased in plastic and has a nine-foot “wingspan,” is relatively slow and imprecise in the way it moves. And it has an elaborate array of safety mechanisms and sensors to protect the human workers it assists.

The $22,000 robot that Rethink will begin selling in October is the clearest evidence yet that robotics is more than a laboratory curiosity or a tool only for large companies with vast amounts of capital. The company is betting it can broaden the market for robots by selling an inexpensive machine that can collaborate with human workers, the way the computer industry took off in the 1980s when the prices of PCs fell sharply and people without programming experience could start using them right out of the box.

“It feels like a true Macintosh moment for the robot world,” said Tony Fadell, the former Apple executive who oversaw the development of the iPod and the iPhone.

Baxter will come equipped with a library of simple tasks, or behaviors — for example, a “common sense” capability to recognize it must have an object in its hand before it can move and release it.

Although it will be possible to program Baxter, the Rethink designers avoid the term. Instead they talk about “training by demonstration.” For example, to pick up an object and move it, a human will instruct the robot by physically moving its arm and making it grab the object.

B4INREMOTE-aHR0cDovLzMuYnAuYmxvZ3Nwb3QuY29tLy1qeFVCNXlYOVNkRS9VRmlzMTBzWlJxSS9BQUFBQUFBQWFKcy80ejFGRUZTNXRHdy9zMzIwL3JldGhpbmtCcm9va3MuanBn

Rodney A. Brooks with Baxter, a robot he developed with an array of safety mechanisms and sensors. NY Times

Read more »


See more and subscribe to NextBigFuture at NextBigFuture.com



Source:

Report abuse

Comments

Your Comments
Question   Razz  Sad   Evil  Exclaim  Smile  Redface  Biggrin  Surprised  Eek   Confused   Cool  LOL   Mad   Twisted  Rolleyes   Wink  Idea  Arrow  Neutral  Cry   Mr. Green

Top Stories
Recent Stories

Register

Newsletter

Email this story
Email this story

If you really want to ban this commenter, please write down the reason:

If you really want to disable all recommended stories, click on OK button. After that, you will be redirect to your options page.