Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
7 Day Old Baby Meets Telepresence Robot Dad
A remote-controlled telepresence robot was used by Army Staff Sgt. Erik Lloyd to see and interact with his family and seven day-old son. The (rather good-looking) camo-enhanced device has a live video uplink and responds to remote control.
(RP-7 telepresence robot impersonates a military man)
This technology has been around for quite a while (see the InTouch Companion: Medical Rounding Robot for a 2004 example), but this is the first time I've heard about it being used by distant dads to interact with their families.
I'm just a tiny bit creeped-out at the prospect of this being the first interaction that a 7 day-old has with his father. However, it presents mostly the face and voice of the father, which is what the child will probably focus on. Also, there's no doubt that it provides a means for the dad to be a part of the stateside family life.
I prefer the more spartan HeadThere Giraffe Telepresence Robot for this particular usage; it has a kind of "mirror, mirror on the wall" look to it that seems more like a display and less like a person.
And if you really wanted to blow the kid's mind, I'd appear as the Robonaut Centaur, because you could use it to actually hold your new son. I can just hear him a year or two later - "My dad has wheels and superpowers - how about your dad?"
Telepresence robotics has a long history in sf; see the telepresence apparatus, a one-hundred year-old reference.
Via DefenseLink, thanks to Moira for the tip.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 4/23/2008)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")
Unitree CEO Wang Xingxing Runs With His G1 Robot Army
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
Blue Collar AI Goes To Work To Mine Its Own Crypto
Blue collar bot.
HandelBot Helps Two-Handed Robots Learn Piano
'I request that you feed the correlation between those dots and the levers of the panel into my memory banks.'
Woven Fiber Electronic Skin For Robots
'... all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.' - Harl Vincent, 1934.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Displays
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large
The Shape of Things To Come
Infrared Contact Lenses To See In The Dark
'I can see in the dark, Case.'
What'll You Have? Extinct Animals Returned, Or Synthetic Eggshells?
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
Sunbird Pulsar Fusion Like Leinster's Space Tug
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
RentAHuman App Lets AI Agents Hire Humans
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
Unitree CEO Wang Xingxing Runs With His G1 Robot Army
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
AIs Turn Marxist Under Bad Management
'It was a general strike of the robots...'
Moscow Attacked By Hundreds Of Drones
'It hurtled on down with inconceivable speed until it was visible as thousands of tiny robot planes...'
Nifty Folding Electric Bicycles!
'Separate paths were provided for them...'
