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Robots Are Net's Future, Says Vint Cerf
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Sep 04, 2008 01:58 PM
from the would-be-great-for-remote-grocery-picking dept.
from the would-be-great-for-remote-grocery-picking dept.
Ned Nederlander writes "Vint Cerf talks the future of the Internet with Ed Cone: 'I expect to see much more interesting interactions, including the possibility of haptic interactions — touch. Not just touch screens, but the ability to remotely interact with things. Little robots, for example, that are instantiations of you, and are remotely operated, giving you what is called telepresence. It's a step well beyond the kind of video telepresence we are accustomed to seeing today.'"
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TCP/IP Meets Physical Reality 72 comments
An anonymous reader writes "When Google is clouding
the borderline between web and the desktop, a much, much smaller
project is blurring the border between the Internet and the
physical reality: the newly released Contiki
operating system version 2.2.1. Contiki runs on networked wireless
sensors that are used for anything from road
tunnel monitoring for fire rescue operations to collecting vital
statistics from ice hockey players. These sensors
typically have as little as a few kilobytes of memory and a few
milliwatts of power budget — a thousandth of the resources of a
typical PC computer — yet Contiki provides them with full TCP/IP
connectivity. Meanwhile, San Francisco is monitoring parking spaces with wireless technology."
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At last! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:At last! (Score:5, Funny)
Don't forget satisfied girlfriends.
Parent
Re:At last! (Score:5, Funny)
The day when there are easily-available machines that mostly replace women for purposes of sex will be an interesting day in the history of women's liberation.
It has certainly been interesting [abovethelaw.com] since men were replaced.
Parent
Re:At last! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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Tell me about it. Hell, I'll even skip the browsing slashdot at home and head over to LJ. Sucks I'm only allowed to post inane, pointless comments on tech sites at work and not social sites.
I like toidals!
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Only at slashdot would the first post be modded "redundant". [slashdot.org] Mods, please consult a dictionary, [reference.com] there are several on the internet. That was offtopic, not redundant.
As this comment will now directly address the parent, [uncyclopedia.org] it is not offtopic. Mod it -1, lame. [uncyclopedia.org]
Dude, robots are going to have to come a long, long way before... oops, bad choice of words.
Robots are going to have to, erm, get a lot more high tech before they'll satisfy. But at any rate, girlfriends go for twenty bucks here in Springfield. See A Nerd's [slashdot.org]
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It's a very tired joke. It's redundant.
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There is a long history in science fiction for robotic girlfriends.
Isaac Asimov's Robots of Dawn comes to mind, where the woman falls in love with a humaniform robot. An early STNG episode had Data having sex with Tasha Yar.
The sex industry would love to have a remote controlled sex doll/robot
I'd like one that wasn't remote controlled, but rather one that I could program to act in any way I wanted it to. If a woman wants sex with me, why would I want a robot involved? Unless, of course, I had a spouse on th
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There is a long history in science fiction for robotic girlfriends
The current best being Megatokyo, with its semi-autonomous PS3 peripheral. Oldest/best may well be the android in the Fritz Lang movie "Metropolis".
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Don't forget CLAMPS!
The worst of it.... (Score:3, Funny)
... just imagine what manifestation the new V!ag@ spam will take on.
It's sandwiches. (Score:2)
Vint Cerf may have created the internet, but I'm a fortune teller and therefore have more authority over the future of the internet. The future is not robots, it's ham sandwiches. Amazing, isn't it? It will give you what I call telesancwichessence.
Pffft! (Score:4, Interesting)
Science fiction writers have been saying this for decades. Actually, I think the esteemed Vincent Cerf has been talking to Captain Obvious. [uncyclopedia.org]
Robotics will have to both become far less expensive, and far more developed than now before this happens. I'm already 56, I may not see it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't fear being dead, but as I actually died once [kuro5hin.org] I don't look forward to the transition from life to death. Those who die in their sleep, or die without pain or suffering, are extremely lucky. My ex-wife's mother died in mid sentence, never knowing she was dying! That's the way to go, I think.
My grandmother lived a hundred years. She outlived her siblings, her friends, two husbands, and three of her four children. As a father I can't imagine anything worse than outliving one of your children. When Grand
Real-time Systems don't like latency.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Imagine! You could control a robot playing tennis remotely! Oh wait.. What if the network lags. Oh we just simulate what would actually be going on the remote tennis court on the local machine and just pause the remote player's screen until we actually hit the ball and then we can send him a message telling him how hard we hit it and in what direction.
Oh WAIT! We're talking about REALITY not a simulation. Well then.. If we lagged we missed the ball and there's no way to paper over it like we can in virtual worlds.
If you had a traditional robot playing tennis running a hard real-time operating system then everything from moving into place, winding up and swinging would all take a predictable amount of time and given a good algorithm one could play a pretty good game.
Anyway, Tennis is a relatively trivial example but things that happen in the physical world where physical forces are in play do not tolerate internet like latency very well. You cannot send xon/xoff like flow control signals to reality.
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I don't think Tennis is to the sort of thing you'd use telepresence for..
Remember the trail they did with students where you could make the recipients phone vibrate when you squeezed yours?
It, ah, wasn't used in the way they expected.
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I can only really think of one reason to make someone else's phone buzz. Are there others?
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They did in The Lost Saucer [wikipedia.org]!
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You could control a robot playing tennis remotely! Oh wait.. What if the network lags.
The same thing that happened ten years ago when we were playing Quake over the internet. Except, of course, bots will be LEGAL. Look at the lag the Martian robots have, and they work incredibly well.
Ever since Pac man came out there is a robotic room I wanted to build. I wanted to make a 3D pack man game you actually got inside of. I even drew up plans once.
You would have LCD screens (my original vision had projectors; it
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Look at the lag the Martian robots have
Indeed, 40 minutes one-way light time at some points in the orbit. Or at least it was during the 1976 Viking I landing, but I'm so out of touch they could have changed the universal constants since then.
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The robot would probably be able to handle some limited decisions should communication slow down.
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"Anyway, Tennis is a relatively trivial example but things that happen in the physical world where physical forces are in play do not tolerate internet like latency very well. You cannot send xon/xoff like flow control signals to reality."
That is correct, so the way it would work is to isue higher level commands. Much like a coach would to a player. The coach gives only higher level statigy like "Stay more left of center and move up a bit." As robots become better they will need les and less real-time co
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Teledildonics (Score:3, Insightful)
Teledildonics [wikipedia.org] seem to be an instantiation of what he is talking about.
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I hope they choose a more mainstreamable name for this technology, which has great application for stuff beyond the naughty. I can think of a lot: teledonics, teletronics, telebotics, teletactlics, teletactics, teletouch ...
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Teletourism!
Go to Paris and don't have to deal with rude waiters, only rude electricians!
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iDildonics?
Low-latency.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see how this would be possible without major commercial investment in high speed low-latency intercity links (like the .edus on Internet2). This kind of remote interactivity requires very low latency in order for it to be remotely feasible.
Remember what the original Quake was like on a 200ms connection? Talk about skating.. Oh, and you can't do client-side prediction in real-world telepresence. I wouldn't want to be in the room when someone was operating a remote machine with high latency.
Would have some definite applications in the DoD though. It might restore the original definition of "strafing".
-molo
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Oh, and you can't do client-side prediction in real-world telepresence. I wouldn't want to be in the room when someone was operating a remote machine with high latency.
So surgery [timesonline.co.uk] is right out then ?
What's the point? (Score:3, Interesting)
For social meetings, etc, would a robot avatar be that much better than a virtual avatar? I can understand when physical actions are actually required on the other end. But meetings? That would just be creepy.
Creativity ??? ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Sounds like a quote from a prediction of how interaction with computers will evolve from about 40 years ago.
Rather I would expect humans to become part of the cloud via low level (nano) interfaces on a borg line (or part of the 'Big Media' as a successor to the 'do no evil' corp).
CC.
This would be a step backwards (Score:2, Interesting)
Robots, yes. Teleoperators, no. (Score:4, Interesting)
The whole point of robots is not to require an operator.
Teleoperators have their uses, but those uses are limited. They're useful if the worksite is dangerous (disarming bombs), unsuitable for humans (underwater), or on a different scale (surgical teleoperators). Remotely piloted vehicles have their uses, too, but even there, the trend is toward automated vehicles.
The remote-presence thing might be useful for people who go to too many meetings and don't have enough clout to force them to be videoconferences. This is a niche market.
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Teleoperators are required when the decision tree is too complex for a robot to do autonomously. They are used when nothing but a wet human brain will do, but the human hardware (fragile and/or poorly dexterous tissue and bone) is not up to task.
Your examples (bomb diffusing, underwater exploration, surgery) all fit this mold. Better to have a human brain making the decisions for hardened robotic hardware than to have a simplistic autonomous decision tree in charge. These applications are not going away.
THIS JUST IN: Hot new toy straight out of China (Score:2, Funny)
Remote robots modeled after the the PRC leader will be the new craze this Christmas.
I, for one, welcome our new remote maoist robot overlords.
Something like this? (Score:2)
Didn't we already have this discussion [slashdot.org] once after someone had already done it? [therecord.com]
When he was wandering around at night looking for someone to "plug him in" .... Talk about reaching out and touching someone. Wow!
Whew! (Score:2)
It's a good thing I got my insurance [robotmarketplace.com] premiums paid up!
I shall call him... (Score:2, Funny)
Robots on the Web in the future? (Score:2)
I just finished working on this project:
http://www.bpexplorer.com.au/ [bpexplorer.com.au]
(NB: Aussie and Kiwi users only can drive - sorry, but for obvious reasons of course)
Basically users queue up and control a robot tank with a web cam attached to it. The streaming IS slightly laggy, but very usable for the purpose.
I wrote the car controller etc. Lots of fun and the best dev project I have worked on. Unique challenges and all that. My degree/research just happened to be in Artificial Intellegence - so a nice (albeit acciden
Battle routine set! Execute! (Score:2)
Obligatory bash.org quote (Score:3, Funny)
#4281 :D-< :D|-< :D/-<
<Zybl0re> get up
<Zybl0re> get on up
<Zybl0re> get up
<Zybl0re> get on up
<phxl|paper> and DANCE
* nmp3bot dances
* nmp3bot dances
* nmp3bot dances
<[SA]HatfulOfHollow> i'm going to become rich and famous after i invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet
source [archive.org]
(using web.archive.org because bash.org is down)
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Re:Has to be said (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
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Heindsight is always 20/20.
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Vote for Bender in 3008!
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However funny, it does have interesting ramifications. What will the pressure threshold be for receiving the telepresence signal? If it goes into pr0n type devices, how sensitive will it be? How hard can it squeeze? A soft grip? A pinprick? The snap of a whip? Hard enough to sever skin or crush blood vessels? There are important safety issues to look into for this.
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I think you'd just set up your gear for what ever level you wanted and no matter how high a signal comes in, doesn't override.
Unless you get hosed by a virus. Man, getting digitally blackmailed will suck!
Re:Imagine... if you will (Score:4, Funny)
People would stop filtering spam.
Parent