The world is not quite ready to have a bunch of robots slaving away after our own needs like in I, Robot, and there is not enough money to go around as such robots will definitely be expensive to own, not to mention our technological knowledge has yet to arrive at such a stage just yet. Well, one always needs to start somewhere, and here we are with what is deemed to be an affordable and easily programmable Baxter robot which might just usher in a new era of robotics.
Rethink Robotics is the company behind Baxter, where it uses what looks like a tablet as its face, and said face will simultaneously function as an input interface as well as a means for detecting what kind of information that the robot is currently processing. All facial expressions will be augmented by face animations so that you will be able to better figure out just what kind of “emotional” state that Baxter is currently going through. There is no need for any programming knowledge here, where you can just direct Baxter’s actions through the direct physical manipulation and simple on-screen prompts.
Baxter is more than capable of handling diverse factory tasks that range from loading to machine operation, light assembly, sorting and inspecting, and packing and unpacking. This industrial robot retails for $22,000 a pop, and will even come with an elaborate safety system that makes it ideal to work alongside humans.
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