 |
Meet Your Miniature Android Duplicate
Get an android doll forty centimeters tall custom-made from your photograph by Little Island - just $2,215. It's equipped with a computer, 80 gig solid state disk and Ethernet; the software is stable Win XP.
And now the android duplicate video.
('Mini-Me' android robot video)
As you can see, this is not a walking, gesturing version of yourself, so fewer worries there. However, it can mimic your voice and even speak your words for you. The Little Island website is not clear, but it appears that you can sit your look-alike doll at a meeting and then speak through it remotely.
I'm now picturing a meeting of people who were all too important to attend in person; it looks like one of my daughter's tea parties.
Just remember the word "Shutdown" - that forces the off switch.
At some point, of course, they will add robotic movement and allow you to download yourself into one; then you'll have a ditto blank like the ones in David Brin's 2002 novel Kiln People.
Most of the ditto blanks that people buy are made elsewhere, but I did glimpse some specialty items as we swept by - rigid figures dimly visible inside translucent packing crates, some of them uncannily tall, or gangly, or shaped like animals out of some legend. Not everyone can handle being imprinted into a non-standard human shape, but I hear it's a growing fashion among trendsetters...
(Read more about Brin's ditto blanks)
Now that I'm thinking about it, I think that there is an earlier short story with a similar kind of theme. In his 1938 short story The Robot and the Young Lady, Manly Wade Wellman writes about a rather unprepossessing man who tries to impress his blind date by sending a tall, handsome teleoperated robot. The robot goes to the restaurant, and meets the beautiful Miss Winthrop, who is a perfect match for the handsome robot. As it turns out, though, Miss Winthrop has also sent a robot! (Bet you never saw that one coming.)
This story is actually a very early version of the idea of a teleoperated robot; read more about Wellman's excellent description of a teleoperated robot surrogate.
I can't remember other sf films or stories with similar themes offhand, but I'm sure there must be lots of them. Readers?
From Little Island [English].
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 2/5/2009)
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 ( 2 )
Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")
Medical Assistant Robot May Roam The Halls Of Hospitals
'Take care, sir.'
Amplified Nerves Lead To Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Hands
'The electrical impulses generated by your brain command everything...' - Martin Caidin, 1972.
FlyCroTug Micro Drones Do Heavy Lifting
'It extended three of its tiny arms sideways to lock on...' - James P. Hogan, 1979.
China Delivery Robot Development Quickens During COVID-2019 Outbreak
'Something very much like a camouflage-painted kangaroo.' - Bruce Sterling, 1994.
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.
Current News
Another Soil Bacterium Eats Plastic
'...the plastic was dissolved before his eyes.'
reLive Memorial Come Back As A Tree
'It was time - time to go again. She touched the leaf. She was wanted.'
Engineered Living Building Materials
'... it was the cheapest building material known.'
Draw Circuits With Conductive Ink
'It's rewiring things... squeezing silver toothpaste in a ribbon along the printed circuitry.'
Arkangel: Automatic Visual Censoring
It's whatever the Party says it is, Winston.
NASA Competition To Design A Bucket Drum For Moon Mining
'There was a heap of discarded ore where Grantline had carted and dumped it...'
Medical Assistant Robot May Roam The Halls Of Hospitals
'Take care, sir.'
No Autonomous Trucks? Wait, What?
'...it resembled conventional human-operated transportation vehicles, but with one exception -- there was no driver's cabin.'
As Big As A Biltong - World's Largest 3D Printer
'Huge and old, it squatted in the center of the settlement park... On the concrete platform... lay a heap of originals to be duplicated.'
Drones Used To Smuggle Contraband Into Prison
'And some mega chip inside so it never runs into anything and no cop ever sees it.'
Are You Ready For Commercial Space Travel?
'It wasn't a pleasant trip; it was a miserable trip on a miserable, undersized tourist rocket...'
Amplified Nerves Lead To Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Hands
'The electrical impulses generated by your brain command everything...'
FlyCroTug Micro Drones Do Heavy Lifting
'It extended three of its tiny arms sideways to lock on...'
Virtual Whitney Houston In Concert
Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang
Robot Teaches Itself To Walk
'My whole idea is to get away from a machine with a set of prearranged instructions, and let them teach themselves by trial and error.'
DARPA's Subterranean Challenge
Let the machines explore the underground city!
