We’ve reached the moment in history where robots are learning how to organize and place objects autonomously. From the opinion section on The Week,
Cornell roboticists have built and successfully tested a canny new housecleaning bot. Of course, building a machine that “knows” where to put your things isn’t easy: The robot has to survey a room, identify the components of the mess you’ve made, and figure out where everything belongs — before actually getting to work. Cornell’s unnamed robo-housekeeper uses advanced algorithms and a 3D Kinect camera to identify misplaced dishes, groceries, books, toys, and trash before putting them in their proper places with a mechanical arm. (Watch a demonstration below.) Though the cleaning bot is still too sluggish to inspire Jetsons fantasies, it gets better with practice, and improved from 80 percent to 98 percent accuracy after a few tries, says Yun Jianga, a graduate student on the research team. Thankfully, it learned “not to put a shoe in the refrigerator.”
Maybe at E3 Microsoft will unveil a Kinect add-on that enables robots to freely play videogames with us. Say goodbye to playing party games alone! I don’t think the idea is that far off since South Korea has already made robot cops.
[via The Week]