Lazy humans, your dream has come true: a robot that could carry food and drink from the kitchen straight to your couch-borne position without you having to get up. It's the Toshiba Wheelie, a balancing bot that zips around on two wheels like an autonomous
Segway, but with the added bonus of retractable runners on the front and back to keep it from toppling should it ever suffer an abrupt power failure. It sports stereo cameras on top and a laser range finder as well, enabling it to find its way around (or under) obstacles. The demonstration video below shows it propping a plate of steak and mixed veggies on its head before taking them for a ride around a demonstration space -- impressive, but given it lacks the arms to pick up the plate in the first place we're thinking this one's usefulness is sadly rather limited. He also can't talk, which means rhyming is right out, but he is kinda cute.
posted March 12th 2010 10:03AM
If they give it arms we're all doomed.
@Unverified User Lol yeah that thing is creepy. Was that the robot talking in another language? It sounds like it was grumbling to itself about what it really wanted to do to all the people watching
@angermeans just don't pee it off cos If It learns to communicate to the microwave, kettle and toaster we are screwed. Dinner will be muderous!!! And if it chats to the Dyson they won't even find your charred remains!!!
@(Unverified) If they made it look more like R2D2 I'd get one
Does it jump? There are stairs at my home from the kitchen to my bedroom.
Wives become more and more obsolete.
*Runs like hell*
"You are an incredible robot AWESOM-O. I was just wondering. Are you by chance a pleasure model?"
@Nitesh they already are except for procreation. Sick of women. Give me the robot.
@Nitesh
A warning against the dangers of human-robot romantic relations. Brought to you by the Space Pope
http://www.hulu.com/watch/4510/futurama-anti-robot-propaganda
If you stick 2 of these in a dimly lit room playing videos of gadget teardowns will they make a little one of themselves?
@Nitesh
There still needs to be something putting food on it.
@Tangerinescream Your girlfriend and I were planning on getting you one as a consolation prize.
So I'm supposed to cook my food, put it on a plate and then quickly run to my table before the robot gets there so it seems like its bringing it to me?
Nice!!! I still want one!
Who prepares the food and puts it on the robot to bring it to me, and why can't that person just bring it? Someone didn't think this through :)
@wraith404 Yes, restaurants are obviously flawed since the Chef doesn't personally bring you your dish.
@Vdek
While potentially viable in a restaurant, I just don't see it happening. It can't exactly take a table's order, and if it were to replace "food runners" you would need an army of these things. They would be stuck in log jams waiting for customers to walk by, or smashing into people spilling food. It might work in a bar/diner style layout but in those cases the people taking your order usually seem to have plenty of time to pass you your food. Maybe a completely mechanized system would work, where you order off a touch pad of some kind and pay by card only. Though, I'm afraid that would end up in the same disarray as walmart self checkout.
I want to see how well it'll do with a bowl of soup or few beer bottles.
Just get up and get your own beer, for crying out loud.. lol
Yes, giving it the perfect opportunity to poison my food, it can tell its evil ruler Colonel Roomba that its tricks can't fool me.
This might work at restaurants.
Have each table have an I.D. tag, Chef puts food on it, and away it goes.
Although I don't think waitresses would be happy with their job being taken over by Robots.
Reminds me of R2D2 on Jabba's sail barge when he was serving food.
@Ninjakid4
And then that 4yr old does a chuck norris act on him
@Ninjakid4: Nerd alert!
Wait, where am I?
@airbag888 Give it laser.
@Ninjakid4 : I thought of the restaurant application, too; but it'd have to be a very *expensive* restaurant. Servers *really* don't get paid much.
@Sarcasme : Ooh! Then it can cook the food itself. Or it could cook the customers.
That's what I was just thinking about.
It would be cool but we would probably have to wait a year or two.
Although I was more thinking along the line of teenagers who would be the one who Chuck Norris it.
Now we're getting somewhere with home tech, this is a little like the Service robot in Caprica but I can see it evolving like this sometime soon.
@xenon73
I also thought it resembles the home service robot in Caprica.
So I can finally have crispy bacon in bed without burning my foot on that damn Forman grill?
I'm glad it can't talk or sing. Would be creepy to wake up and hear it singing "Daisy Bell" HAL-style.
Am I the only one who was totally surprise by how big it was once she put the food on its head, as a scale comparison?
For less than the cost of one divorce you can have three of these.
I'm not clear on the advantage of a balancing 2-wheeler vs. a more stable model, aside from the tech beauty of it all. With a Segway, it allowed for leaning controls. With this?
Am I the only one that sees the connection to the Syfy television show Caprica?
Hello Serge, may I enter?
http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Serge
Robots, making people fatter one Watt at a time.
Doesn't do burnouts? I can fix that.
Stairs fail. I wonder if they took it off some sweet jumps?
The use of this thing is actually more commercial. Think of a Microsoft Surface or iPad at the restaurant with the menu on it. You enter your order which goes to the kitchen. The cook places it on top of this little thing and it zips it to your table. This thing could make waitresses and waiters obsolete.
If this gets popular, girls are going to feel less needed
When will it do:
Laundry
Dish Washing
Gardening
Taking Care of Wastes (recycling recyclables)
Cooking (if I don't feel like it)
Groceries Shopping (if needed)
And additional chores
Without taking over the world?
It's like a cross between Rosie and ET
My mums been put out of hear job :(