Your robot has encountered a serious error and needs to self destruct. In an article Bill Gates generously wrote for Scientific American, he talked about his abstract view on robots; saying they will be a “nearly ubiquitous part of our day-to-day lives”, and Microsoft wants to help start the new era. 

In the article, titled “A Robot in Every Home”, Gates claims the robotics industry hasn’t seen a breakthrough because it lacks common standards and platforms. “Robotics companies have no standard operating software that could allow popular application programs to run in a variety of devices,” Gates mentioned.

Of course, this is seemingly sounding like a little self-serving promotion on Gates’ behalf, especially noting the recent release of Microsoft Robotics Studio; which, in fact, is such a tool to provide a common development platform.

Gates added that falling prices and increased availability on hardware and CPU power are removing the roadblock and paving the way for a new era when “the PC will get up off the desktop and allow us to see, hear, touch and manipulate objects in places where we are not physically present.”

There is no criticism for Gates or Microsoft here; A leader must stand out above the crowd and set standards for the rest of us to follow, and Microsoft has already proven that. Let us all hope  when this technology does come to us, at an affordable price, that there are not 2 platforms available to us. (Ex: this robot does not support Mac based software) 

Although the question still remains, if robots could be as useful to us now, as computers were 30 years ago. I personally couldn’t imagine a practical household use for a robot. Sure, as it is, I could buy a “robot” to vacuum my house, but that is way behind my definition of utilizable technology. At the same time, had I been born 30 years prior, I might not even have a practical use for a computer.

The technology has to explode somewhere at some point in time; if Microsoft has anything to do with it, they will be at the front end of this technology with their Robotics Studio.

Microsoft Robotics Studio is available for free with non-commercial use. It seems a bit advanced (as it should be), but If you’ve downloaded or used it, drop a comment, we’d like to know.

As far as when we might see this technology spawn, Gates noted that “Projects are complex, progress is slow and practical applications are relatively rare;” which, doesn’t give us any hope for the near future, but added, “The Japanese Robot Association predicts that by 2025, the personal robot industry will be worth more than $US50 billion a year worldwide, compared to about $US5 billion today.”

Related:

Entry was posted on Sunday, January 7th, 2007 at 4:55 am under Microsoft, Science and technology.

Read more entries by George Gardner.
Stumble It!