Robotics Companies Look to Near Future - Disruptions

The New York Times
Monday, August 13, 2012

Robotics Companies Look to Near Future - Disruptions

By NICK BILTON

MENLO PARK, Calif. - Millions of people watched a robot descend last week on Mars, about 154 million miles away, while it shared video, photos and status updates from its own Twitter account.

I had my own encounter with a robot last week. I had dinner with one - right here in Silicon Valley.

The dinner was at Willow Garage, a robotics company in Menlo Park, and was intended to introduce some reporters to the robots the company is building.

The main attraction was the PR2, which can pick things up, fold laundry, open doors and bring cups, plates and other small objects to people. The PR2 is pretty stunning to see in action. Its price, $400,000 for the fully functional version, is pretty stunning, too. And although it is impressive to watch, it is still easily baffled by the mundane.

At the dinner, one of the PR2s dropped a soda can on the floor and just stood there, befuddled. It couldn't figure out what had happened to the can. It was as if it had just performed a wonderful magic trick on itself.

It is hard to know how many robots are in use today because roboticists disagree on what a robot is. Must it have arms, or artificial intelligence, or facial recognition? The earliest definition of the word, which comes from the Czech word robota, means "forced labor," or "slave."

Robotics companies give various estimates for the numbers of robots in use. Whatever the numbers, people like Steve Cousins, Willow Garage's president and chief executive, think robots will become a lot more mainstream in the not-too-distant future.

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