4 ms·

This is your monthly reminder that Boston Dynamics is exceptionally good at product demos. It remains much less clear that they’re any good at anything else.

This is your monthly reminder that Boston Dynamics is exceptionally good at product demos. It remains much less clear that they’re any good at anything else. Also, Spot looks like a Houndeye to me, so i keep waiting for it to make “wheeeennnnnnn BAM” noises.

me_me_me 7y ago
> It remains much less clear that they’re any good at anything else. They are also exceptionally good at building impressive robots.
- hprotagonist 7y ago
  Not to be too blunt here, but: besides very impressive numbers of youtube views, what have those robots accomplished, in a “we have deployed X thousand of these in the following Y situations” sense, since 2006? I’m (way more than) fine with blue sky work, and BD deserves credit for not building weapons, but at the same time there’s an impedance mismatch here.
  - JackFaker 7y ago
    If you're interested Adam Savage was allowed to use a 'Spot' robot for several months and shares some observations and information on actual usage on his youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-PdPtqw78k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-PdPtqw78k
    - hprotagonist 7y ago
      https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/24/boston-dynamics-puts-its-robotic-quadruped-spot-up-for-sale/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/24/boston-dynamics-puts-its-r... reading between the lines, as of Q4 last year they're still in _extremely_ early in any meaningful deployment. Lease-based alpha access to select customers, "hey we don't have to send a 12-man team out every month anymore", and carefully PRd information is certainly some kind of progress, but it's not anything like normal use.
      - JackFaker 7y ago
        Definitely not normal use, probably something akin to controlled alpha or beta testing. The only recent article a saw about the fall 2019 trials/leases was this article that didn't provide any meaningful details on usage. https://www.officer.com/command-hq/technology/article/21128615/electronic-law-enforcement-and-robotic-equipment https://www.officer.com/command-hq/technology/article/211286...

me_me_me 7y ago

> It remains much less clear that they’re any good at anything else. They are also exceptionally good at building impressive robots.

hprotagonist 7y ago
Not to be too blunt here, but: besides very impressive numbers of youtube views, what have those robots accomplished, in a “we have deployed X thousand of these in the following Y situations” sense, since 2006? I’m (way more than) fine with blue sky work, and BD deserves credit for not building weapons, but at the same time there’s an impedance mismatch here.
- JackFaker 7y ago
  If you're interested Adam Savage was allowed to use a 'Spot' robot for several months and shares some observations and information on actual usage on his youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-PdPtqw78k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-PdPtqw78k
  - hprotagonist 7y ago
    https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/24/boston-dynamics-puts-its-robotic-quadruped-spot-up-for-sale/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/24/boston-dynamics-puts-its-r... reading between the lines, as of Q4 last year they're still in _extremely_ early in any meaningful deployment. Lease-based alpha access to select customers, "hey we don't have to send a 12-man team out every month anymore", and carefully PRd information is certainly some kind of progress, but it's not anything like normal use.
    - JackFaker 7y ago
      Definitely not normal use, probably something akin to controlled alpha or beta testing. The only recent article a saw about the fall 2019 trials/leases was this article that didn't provide any meaningful details on usage. https://www.officer.com/command-hq/technology/article/21128615/electronic-law-enforcement-and-robotic-equipment https://www.officer.com/command-hq/technology/article/211286...