6 ms·

This (FTA) would be creepy to see roaming around: http://anybots.com/ http://anybots.com/

by SoftwareMaven 16y ago

philwelch 16y ago
Anybots is also well known on HN for being founded by YC partner Trevor Blackwell. They even share YC's building.
- tommynazareth 16y ago
  Trevor must be half insane. Those people sitting around laughing with the Anybot is one of the most bizarre things I've seen. Can you imagine working in a factory where your boss roamed around the floors as an Anybot?! I'm not going to say this isn't a great and sensible product, but it is very weird.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    Trevor must be half insane, but that's not the reason why. I've gathered that long term goal is telepresence robots that can enable transcontinental labor arbitrage. That has the potential to make Trevor, at least in the developed world, one of the most despised people alive. Talk about disruptive.
    - voidpointer 16y ago
      Just imagine the immense satisfaction of delivering a well executed spinning kick to one of these things when it drives up to you on a Monday morning squeaking "Hey, what's happening?" - ka-zonk!
      - die_sekte 16y ago
        Which will probably summon a quadro-kill-copter.
        GFischer 16y ago
        Even worse, a HR-drone.
    - conover 16y ago
      There was a movie fairly recently called Sleep Dealer which incorporated virtual labor as a plot element. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804529/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804529/
      - swaroop 16y ago
        On a similar note, was the Bruce Willis-starrer "alternate body" movie called Surrogates (2009) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986263/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986263/
Groxx 16y ago
Needs a laser drawing tool (think laser light show) to be even remotely useful, not just a pointer, else how do you describe something they haven't seen? "No, the $circle_7 goes below the $resistor_3_12, inscribed in $heptagon_3, like in a fronkit. What? Never seen one? Oh hell..." Until then, good luck designing anything collaboratively. I like the hat-like look to the top, though. Personality without uncanny valley, and still highly functional in design; perfect for something like this.
- philwelch 16y ago
  You can just draw a doodle and hold it up to the webcam on your end. It doesn't have to be anything as awesome as a laser light show, though to be fair that would be pretty cool.
  - Groxx 16y ago
    And to tell someone to connect lines A through G in this shape, when there are, say, 30 on the board? A doodle + screen works slightly, but certainly not optimally. And even if the laser-drawer can only manage a fairly small amount of detail, it lets you do at least part of an idea, let them see it / trace it, and then a later part, all lined up however you please. The screen's even pretty small, so it's not like you'd be able to show your masterpiece on it all at once either. Anything non-projected break down any time you've got a large scale - what's an efficient way to point out a sparse mesh between 20 objects on a whiteboard? Point to one, and then the next which it connects to, lather-rinse-repeat to 40 points (more if it's a directional graph), or draw 20 lines and leave them up for people to peruse simultaneously? People just can't remember that many things at once, so you'd rely on someone to marker in your lines... to be erased if you come up with something better? Even changing a single line means several dots + waiting for someone to walk over and do it for you, instead of just changing what's displayed. And how about completing a circuit diagram? Have fun pointing out a resistor, inductor, and XOR gate[1], dot-by-dot, or showing any complex replacement in a number of sketches + several points showing where each connects. Even if you're only able to draw a couple at a time, being able to draw them in place is a huge efficiency boost. edit: Or designing in groups: crowd around the 'bot to look at the screen, while you-or-they are unable to see the board, every time you have input that can't be elaborated by a single dot + words. The time it takes you to sketch something and hold it up to a webcam is the same as or longer than it would take to make those lines displayed, but then everyone can see it at once, as you intended it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Circuit_elements.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Circuit_elements.svg

This (FTA) would be creepy to see roaming around: http://anybots.com/ http://anybots.com/

philwelch 16y ago

Anybots is also well known on HN for being founded by YC partner Trevor Blackwell. They even share YC's building.

tommynazareth 16y ago
Trevor must be half insane. Those people sitting around laughing with the Anybot is one of the most bizarre things I've seen. Can you imagine working in a factory where your boss roamed around the floors as an Anybot?! I'm not going to say this isn't a great and sensible product, but it is very weird.
- philwelch 16y ago
  Trevor must be half insane, but that's not the reason why. I've gathered that long term goal is telepresence robots that can enable transcontinental labor arbitrage. That has the potential to make Trevor, at least in the developed world, one of the most despised people alive. Talk about disruptive.
  - voidpointer 16y ago
    Just imagine the immense satisfaction of delivering a well executed spinning kick to one of these things when it drives up to you on a Monday morning squeaking "Hey, what's happening?" - ka-zonk!
    - die_sekte 16y ago
      Which will probably summon a quadro-kill-copter.
      - GFischer 16y ago
        Even worse, a HR-drone.
  - conover 16y ago
    There was a movie fairly recently called Sleep Dealer which incorporated virtual labor as a plot element. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804529/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804529/
    - swaroop 16y ago
      On a similar note, was the Bruce Willis-starrer "alternate body" movie called Surrogates (2009) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986263/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986263/

Groxx 16y ago

Needs a laser drawing tool (think laser light show) to be even remotely useful, not just a pointer, else how do you describe something they haven't seen? "No, the $circle_7 goes below the $resistor_3_12, inscribed in $heptagon_3, like in a fronkit. What? Never seen one? Oh hell..." Until then, good luck designing anything collaboratively. I like the hat-like look to the top, though. Personality without uncanny valley, and still highly functional in design; perfect for something like this.

philwelch 16y ago
You can just draw a doodle and hold it up to the webcam on your end. It doesn't have to be anything as awesome as a laser light show, though to be fair that would be pretty cool.
- Groxx 16y ago
  And to tell someone to connect lines A through G in this shape, when there are, say, 30 on the board? A doodle + screen works slightly, but certainly not optimally. And even if the laser-drawer can only manage a fairly small amount of detail, it lets you do at least part of an idea, let them see it / trace it, and then a later part, all lined up however you please. The screen's even pretty small, so it's not like you'd be able to show your masterpiece on it all at once either. Anything non-projected break down any time you've got a large scale - what's an efficient way to point out a sparse mesh between 20 objects on a whiteboard? Point to one, and then the next which it connects to, lather-rinse-repeat to 40 points (more if it's a directional graph), or draw 20 lines and leave them up for people to peruse simultaneously? People just can't remember that many things at once, so you'd rely on someone to marker in your lines... to be erased if you come up with something better? Even changing a single line means several dots + waiting for someone to walk over and do it for you, instead of just changing what's displayed. And how about completing a circuit diagram? Have fun pointing out a resistor, inductor, and XOR gate[1], dot-by-dot, or showing any complex replacement in a number of sketches + several points showing where each connects. Even if you're only able to draw a couple at a time, being able to draw them in place is a huge efficiency boost. edit: Or designing in groups: crowd around the 'bot to look at the screen, while you-or-they are unable to see the board, every time you have input that can't be elaborated by a single dot + words. The time it takes you to sketch something and hold it up to a webcam is the same as or longer than it would take to make those lines displayed, but then everyone can see it at once, as you intended it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Circuit_elements.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Circuit_elements.svg