Robots - iPhone Robots

I was skimming through articles on Wired.com, and I saw one that said something about the common man’s robot being headless… so I decided to check it out. The article started out discussing how we have all these cool technological devices in our homes, but no robots, even though that was a big thing of the sci-fi future before. This group got together and created a base (with wheels, so it’s movable) for an iPod/iPhone. You download the Romo app (that’s what the robot is called), and it gives the device a face, and it’ll even change features and track you with the sensor. They’re working on creating a lot more advances for it, such as facial recognition between family members and friends, so that it has a “personality”. You can control your Romo with another iOS device, so you could potentially use your outdated phone as the “brain” and face of the Romo, and your current phone as the controller. It looked like they’re even attempting to bring this to the Android market, as well. I think it’s really interesting how our smartphones have become central to our lives, and this is just an example. Our phones are finding ever more uses in our lives and how they interact with us daily. The hardware and the software is there, we just have to learn how to apply it all in a way that is affordable for the “common consumer”. One of the great things about this is that the team opened up the software coding and everything to let other developers create programs that are compatible with Romo, and thereby making it even better and a bigger part of the consumer’s life. One of my favorite parts about the article was the video at the end that gave a spiel about Romo, which I have included a link to on this page.

http://www.wired.com/business/2013/02/common-mans-robot/
http://vimeo.com/51263340#