WEBVTT - TechStuff Does the Robot 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:14.440 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to Tech Stuff. 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.760 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:20.720 Stuff Media and I heart radio and love all things tech. 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:25.840 And Today, dear listeners, we have something very special for 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:30.680 all of you because you've become so accustomed to having 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:36.080 your lonesome hero out there on the waste lands covering technology. Today, 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:39.320 I've got a partner in crime, Adam, and I'm Dowd 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:42.920 from Android Authority. Thank you so much for joining me 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:45.960 for this episode. I'm excited to be here. Thank you 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:47.760 so much for having me. And you know what, I 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:53.320 enjoy your your lonesome man routines, so I'm just glad 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.160 that I can contribute. It's it's great. Uh. I have 0:00:56.360 --> 0:00:59.319 gotten very good at doing that tennis ball thing from 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:02.880 stillag seven team. That's a film reference. All you youngsters 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:05.560 out there, go check that out. But it's nice to 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:09.319 have someone else to chat tech with and just some 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:13.680 background guys. Adam reached out to me heading into ce S. 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.440 Originally we had hoped to record a podcast at c 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:21.360 e S itself. That didn't quite work out, but for 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:26.600 Cess nuts, you've heard me talk about it, And so 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:28.800 how many ce s s have you been to? Was 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.440 this your first one or had you been before? This 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:34.120 was my second one, but there were three years apart. 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:36.880 So my first one was in two thousand sixteen, and 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:38.760 then I was supposed to go in two thousand seventeen, 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.080 got canceled last minute, two thousand eighteen I just couldn't 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:45.480 swing it, and two thousand nineteen, blamo, here we go. 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:49.160 So you've been twice, I've been. I've been ten times. 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.880 And that's not the summi bragging. There are journalists who 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:57.240 have been covering ce s for longer than I've been alive, 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:04.720 so not. But you know, is is a chaotic busy. 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:10.240 You know, you're constantly running from one point to another experience. 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:15.120 Nothing is close to anything else. So many ubers, so 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:20.160 many and and you think you look at a map 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:22.200 of the Las Vegas Strip and you think it can't 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:24.839 possibly take very long to get from there to there? 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:28.000 Oh boy, can it take a long time to get 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:31.280 even just a few casinos away? You might you can 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:34.000 probably walk into about the same time, but you're going 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:37.320 to be exhausted when you get there. My favorite story 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:41.680 to tell regarding the distances between places in Las Vegas. 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.079 Was this year. I was at the Flamingo Hotel attending 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:48.239 a robotics conference which we will undoubitedly talk about shortly, 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:52.280 and from there I had to go to Pepcom, which 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:54.400 was in the Mirage Hotel. Now, if you look at 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.320 a map of Las Vegas, there's only it's only about 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:00.880 a ten minute walk from the Flamingo over to the Mirage. However, 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:03.280 once you hit the front door of the Mirage, you 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:07.160 have to walk another literally ten minutes from the front 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.280 door of the Mirage to the ballroom in the Mirage 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:14.640 where Pepcom is actually being held. You just you hate 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:16.720 yourself by the time you get there. Yeah. Part of 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:19.080 this is because of the design of casinos, right. The 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.120 whole idea is to try and entice people into gamble 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.880 and to spend more money. So there's no easy direct 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.840 path for a lot of these these sort of journeys 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:31.960 you go through. You have to go through an entire 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.800 casino floor and there's usually like that means diverting around 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:40.040 some centralized area. Usually it's the high rollers suite or 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.600 whatever in the middle, or it's a restaurant or something 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:46.040 it's it's just it's not They don't make it easy 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.560 to get around, and so we didn't get a chance 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:50.320 to meet up during C E S. But you were 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:54.120 covering robotics at c E S. It's a subject near 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:58.400 and dear to my heart, which still remains human. Don't worry, 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.360 but I thought we would talk. Yeah, it's well, you know, 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:03.680 I gotta take that that test every now and then. 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:07.320 But we're going to We're going to talk about consumer 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:11.920 robots because I've covered robotics quite a bit on tech stuff, 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:16.400 and I've talked about robotics from prototyping and military robots 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.479 that did the episodes about Boston Dynamics and how many 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:22.120 years they spent just trying to get a robot to 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:25.400 hop in a circle properly. We're going to talk about 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.320 the consumer side of things and what you saw at 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:31.480 CES because you were right there in the thick of it, 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:34.680 whereas I was. I was in an ivory tower next 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:38.720 to a Claude bathtub next to my bed. For reasons 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:43.160 I still don't quite grasp it's it. It's you know what. 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:45.920 It gives me a wonderful mental picture, though, so I 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.760 really appreciate that. So it didn't take a photo of 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:50.640 me in the tub, but I was fully clothed and 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.440 there was in the water in there. It's just just 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:58.320 I was like, I've got to I've got to experience this, right, Oh, totally, totally. 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:00.560 So yeah, just a little background. You know, I work 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.839 for Android Authority and we're all things, you know, smartphones 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.960 and tablets and whatnot. But I was asked by my editors, 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:10.080 you know, if you could take a look at, you know, 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:14.240 anything else aside from you know, smartphones, because ce us 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:17.359 not really huge for smartphones, to be honest, so you 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.320 want more about the Mobile World Congress or something from 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:22.920 the right right, which is coming up in just a month. 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:24.960 But so they asked me, you know what else would 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:26.240 you like to take a look at. Would you like 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:29.240 to look at robots? And I said, sure, that sounds great, 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:31.120 let's do that. Because you know, I'm I'm a big 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:34.880 Jetsons fan. I love Rosie, I love you know, from 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:37.360 from Lost in Space, the robot you know, I love 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:39.400 all that stuff. So I figured, let's go take a 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:43.320 look at that. And then I realized just how broad 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:49.440 the robotics industry is, and it's everything from autonomous cars too, 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.040 you know, personal robots to room Buzz to everything in between. 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:55.600 So I sat down with my editors and I said, 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:58.320 we need to focus, we need to we need to 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:01.000 narrow this thing down a little bit. And they said, well, 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:02.279 what do you want to look at it? And I said, 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.280 I want something that will bring me my beer. Can 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:07.960 we do that? And they said absolutely, let's do that. 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.000 So that's where I kind of ended up, was looking 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:13.560 at the robots that not not so much the ones 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:15.200 that you snuggle with to help you to sleep, but 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:17.799 the ones that will, you know, do things for you. Yeah. 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:21.000 I mean I remember a couple of years ago one 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.560 of the robots I've got a lot of buzz on 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:29.520 the floor was a close folding robot and it didn't 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.039 look anything. People when they hear the word robot, I 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.320 think more often than not, they're thinking of an anthropomorphic figure, right, 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:41.040 some humors vaguely human shaped, and unless there's someone who's 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:43.480 owned things like room Buzz and that sort of stuff 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:45.360 where they think, oh, no, robots can come in all 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.680 shapes and sizes. This thing looked like it was a box. Uh. 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:50.920 It looked like just a box that you put clothing 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:53.120 in and it would bring you folded it would you know, 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.440 spit folded clothing out And I was there this year too, 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.320 So that's that just tells you that robots come in 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:01.880 all shapes and sizes and for all sorts of functions, 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:04.719 and a lot of them are dedicated functions, like a 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:08.800 very specific one function kind of robot. Because as you 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.160 learn more about robotics, you learned that the more things 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:14.000 you want your robot to do, the harder it is 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.040 to design the robot to do any of them. Well, 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:20.400 you have a development community behind you that will build 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:22.760 all these different skills for different robots. But I could 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:25.160 be referring to another podcast that we might have just 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:27.920 finished recording. Yes, you you will definitely have to listen 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:32.160 to that episode over at at Android Authority because we 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:36.360 talked a lot about the Misty robot platform, and we 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.760 won't go over that material here because I think it's 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.440 really important you guys go out and check out that episode. 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:44.520 It was a great episode. I really enjoyed being on it. 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:46.560 Thank you by the way for inviting me to be 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:50.440 on that show. And I think you guys out there 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:52.360 tech stuff fans, you should definitely go check that out 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.760 because that will be a nice compliment to this episode, 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:58.240 I thought, I thought something that'd be fun to do. 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:00.680 This is just I'm just gonna run down a quick 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:04.680 list of some of the famous consumer robots that have 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:06.440 come out over the years and kind of give you 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:12.320 an idea of the the evolution of consumer robots over 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:16.640 the past decades. So, Adam, I don't know how old 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:18.160 you are. I am not going to ask you that 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:21.880 question unless you feel comfortable mentioning it. I am of 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:24.800 the tender age of forty three years old. And you 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.000 got me all right, there we go. So you remember 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:32.840 the eighties right vaguely? Yeah? Yeah, it was a crazy 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:35.880 time for all of us. But so in the in 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:40.000 the eighties, I remember distinctly there there was one thing 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:42.160 I really wish I could have asked for as a 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:45.000 Christmas present, but I just I knew it was. It 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:48.360 was beyond my star, as Shakespeare would say, it was 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:50.920 something that was to be wished for but never owned. 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:55.040 That was the infamous Omnibot. I don't know if you 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:57.680 ever saw an omnibot or you know what I'm talking about. 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.920 The original Omnibot had of a dome like head. It 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:04.440 was tiny, it was it was you know, maybe two 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:06.679 ft tall, maybe three I don't think it was three 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:09.640 ft tall, probably two ft tall, and had a cassette 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:13.000 tape player built into its chest, and you could actually 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:16.920 put programming on cassette, you know, record a program onto 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:20.040 magnetic tape on cassette and put that into chest and 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.480 it would follow it. It would also just play in 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:24.560 regular audio cassettes if you wanted, So, if you wanted 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:26.679 to have your robot shred to a C d C, 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:29.800 you could, and you should I think, you know, and 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:33.040 for those for those about two bot, we salute you, 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:37.080 and uh. You could also program it with a remote control. 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:39.520 You could do voice commands over the remote control, and 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:42.840 it was it was done as like a programmable robot 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:47.400 that you could own. And I thought it looked phenomenal. 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:49.400 These days, if you look at you're gonna think, wow, 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:54.560 how quaint. But that was an early example and and 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:58.200 by all measure of today's robotics, it was certainly a 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.880 primitive example. But to a kid in the nineteen eighties, 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:04.439 this was the next best thing to having your own 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:08.080 R two D two in your house. Oh for sure. Absolutely. 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:10.240 I was gonna say, amnibot did kind of look like 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.280 Artie D two's idiot cousin at the time, but yes, 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:17.480 for sure. So this kind of leads into the next 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.040 robot I want to talk about, which was the Robotic 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:25.240 Operating Buddy or rob. Rob was a justification to sell 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:30.079 Nintoto entertainment systems. So when the NES first came out 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:34.000 in the United States, stores did not want to carry 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:38.040 a video game console because the video game crash in 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:43.319 the United States had totally decimated that that market actually 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.040 decimates the wrong term, that's just reducing it by ten. 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.000 That market was gone. Uh so no one wanted to 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:53.360 carry a video game console. So Nintendo, in an effort 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:57.120 to make it more attractive to toy stores in the 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:02.760 United States, had developed this successory, this peripheral called rob 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.800 that was a robot and I used big air quotes 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:11.079 on that that would go along with the console. And 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:13.680 it had maybe two titles that worked with the robot, 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:18.320 and that was enough to get toy stores convinced to 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:20.520 carry it because robotics was starting to become a thing, 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:23.679 even though video game consoles no longer were really thought 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:27.920 of as being marketable. And then and it worked. And 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:29.880 then as soon as Nintendo saw it was working, they 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.360 dropped rob because there was no reason to keep making 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:34.800 this very expensive peripheral when they could just sell the 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:38.640 video game console. Uh yeah, I was in Atari family, 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:40.800 so we didn't really get into the whole Nintendo thing 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:44.679 until much later. Same here, Buddy, I was Ayer, and 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:49.280 later on I inherited and in television that was Those 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:54.040 were my early consoles. Uh and then we're skipping ahead 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:56.280 a lot here, more than a decade, actually, I guess 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:58.960 I could argue was also when we saw an amazing 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:04.680 robot in the uh incredible documentary film Rocky four. But 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:07.760 the less we say about that, the better it's. It 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:10.600 wasn't really a consumer robot that anyone could just go 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:12.199 out and buy unless you had a quarter of a 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:18.080 million dollars on you. So Lego introduced mind Storms, the 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:21.920 modular design system that allowed people to play with concepts 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.160 of robotics and programming as well as robotic design, which 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:30.480 was kind of cool. Sony released the first Ibo, robotic Dog, 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:35.160 which it continues to iterate upon, so we occasionally see 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:39.280 new IBOs that look more I don't know if the 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.600 word is realistic. It doesn't really look more like a dog, 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:49.720 but it looks less nineties robots style, which is an improvement. 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:52.040 I think we can all argue. I think so. Two 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:54.520 thousand two was when we first got the room BA. 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.960 I didn't even realize it was that old. But yeah. 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:01.200 I Robot, which had been making military are robots up 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:05.240 to that point, introduces a consumer vacuum cleaner robot in 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:08.960 two thousand two. I'm pretty sure that's the that's the 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:13.079 the actual plot to Terminator, but I could be wrong 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:17.120 about that. Have seen its mapping out all of our 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.360 houses and sending them over. Yeah, and so we have 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.720 essentially like the Google Maps, except it's everybody's home because 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:26.679 like rumbas, like this is a particularly tricky corner. I 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.440 get stuck in this corner listen because the way they 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:30.960 have the chair set up, and you just want to 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.000 be aware of that. That's why I live in a 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:35.760 split level house. Yes, yeah, I've got lots of stairs 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:38.200 in my home. There's no chance for a rumba in 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:40.320 my place. So I don't I don't know anyone. But 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.480 then two thousand five they came out with the Scuba, 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.360 which was the mopping robot. Version two thousand six was 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.840 a robot that didn't it no longer is in production. 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.440 It's called the Dirt Dog. It was a robotic shop back, 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:56.480 but it was discontinued. In two thousand seven, they introduced 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:59.840 the Luge gutter cleaning robot, which was actually a remote 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:04.080 troll device, and then the Vero pool cleaning robot was 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:07.920 also released in two thousand seven. And I remember this 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:10.040 because I was at the c E s was when 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.680 Parrot drone first showed off their their first quad copter 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:17.800 at c then that I would argue is more of 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:23.160 a radio controlled device, but it it kind of figuratively 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:28.480 and literally launched the consumer drone craze, which later on 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:32.480 developed into models that we saw have some at least 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.960 rudimentary robotic elements to it, things like being able to 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.120 follow a person around right, have facial were condition and following. 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.480 It seems some pretty cool ones. STO was first shown 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:44.880 off inven I remember that as well. Two point o 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:49.880 came out in and there are no shortage of robots 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:54.320 at ces past and present. They range everything from the 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:59.240 incredibly sophisticated we're talking like autonomous car type technology too, 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:03.440 things that are called robots but aren't really robots. They're 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:07.520 more like fun little toys or sometimes just diversions like 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:12.000 I think of like the Little Dancing Flower. It takes 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:14.400 audio and it starts to move like. There are a 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:18.400 lot of those as well. Sure, it's such a broad field. 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:20.960 Like we mentioned at the at the beginning of the show, 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.320 there's just so much that you could consider robotics. One 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:26.160 one robot that you actually left out of your list, 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:28.320 if you don't mind, this was. This is my robot 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:31.479 when I was a kid was the Radio Shack Armatron. 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:33.840 I don't know if you remember that. That was a 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.200 little robotic arm It set on a pedestal, had two 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.880 little joysticks that you could use to manipulate the claw 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:42.120 and the end, and it came with like a little 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.000 little balls in a little box that you could open 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:45.480 up and put the balls in the box. It was. 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.320 It was. It was tons of fun and we used 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.440 that thing for days and days and days. Yeah, I 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:54.120 mean I remember I never owned one, but I remember 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:56.000 those as well. I remember when that came out, and 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.880 I remember thinking that was a really cool looking devices. Uh, 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.400 from that same from that same sort of era of 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:07.920 my childhood. So these are these are really we've seen 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:12.400 an evolution of these products over the years, Like there's 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:14.000 certain ones that are always going to be in that 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:18.120 sort of diversion toy category, and they're never they're never 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:20.960 gonna get particularly sophisticated, and that's fine because that's not 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:23.480 their intention. They're meant to be toys. They're meant to 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.640 be these fun little things that are not terribly expensive 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.640 that can do something vaguely entertaining. Hey, guys, Jonathan here, 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:32.760 Adam and I have a lot more to say about 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:35.960 consumer robotics, but before we get into that, let's take 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:46.360 a quick break to thank our sponsor. We've seen a 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:51.760 lot of advances in other areas of consumer robotics technology, 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:56.640 and uh so, I'm curious what was your experience covering 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:58.920 robotics at c e S. What were some of the 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:02.080 things that you saw that really either stood out to 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.840 you as being particularly interesting or even if there was 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:09.479 something that was maybe confounding or you know, you're just like, 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.240 I don't I don't even get what they were going 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:14.760 before with this, because sometimes you run into that too. 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:18.600 Oh sure, Oh, definitely one of the I think one 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:21.719 of the coolest robot One of the things that just 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:24.800 overall impressions that I came away from c e S 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:27.919 with was I was kind of surprised how far we 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:33.760 already are because I saw legitimate consumer products that someone 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:37.960 could go out and buy and have driving around their house. Now, 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:39.760 you'd have to be rich, you'd have to be a 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:41.920 lot more rich than I am, but you could still 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:45.560 have this robot driving around your house and you know, 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:49.360 following you with music or bringing you drinks things like that. 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:53.119 One robot in particular that stood out there were two 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.200 really that I think we're really kind of creme day 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:58.840 la creme. But the one that really stood out to 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:01.560 me as being a little bit more realistic at this 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:05.040 day and age would be the Temi robot, which was 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:09.400 kind of like um, kind of like a rolling serving 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.840 trade that could could roll around. It would in theory, 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:14.800 it would meet you at the door when you came in. 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:20.680 It would not play Stone called Steve Austin's intro music. Unfortunately, big, big, 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:24.560 but big check against that robot, but a right, So 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:26.560 that's the one that's one box that didn't get checked. 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:31.040 But it did have an integrated wireless charging doc that 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.480 you could set your phone down on it and start 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:35.640 charging your phone as soon as you walked in the door, 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:38.680 and then it would follow you It had a tracking 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:41.160 software where you could turn away from it and walk 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:43.680 away from it and it would follow you around. And 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.640 what was really cool was if someone walked in between 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:49.439 you and the robot, it didn't freak out. It was 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:51.679 able to pick you back up and keep following you. 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:56.560 And you could ask you, you know, various Alexa type things, 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:00.320 how's the weather outside, how's you know, what's my jewel 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:02.959 for today? Stuff like that. It had a screen so 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:05.960 it could show you what was what you wanted to see. 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:08.919 It could play videos for you things like that, and 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:10.440 it had a tray on the back so you could, 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:13.080 you know, set things down and have it carried around 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:15.719 for you. I don't know if you're particularly lazy, but 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.080 this this robot kind of stood out to me just 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:22.200 because it was the type of robot that I could 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.440 see myself using if I had a lot of money. 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:28.800 Um I don't, so I won't, but it was That's 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:30.760 what really kind of stuck out to me, is this 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.000 is something that I could see in two thousand nineteen 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:38.000 a home actually having in it and not being stupid. 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:41.520 If that makes that's that's that's a legit thing. Though. 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.520 I mean, like we're getting to a point where the 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.359 technology is reaching a level of sophistication where we can 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:54.040 actually see applications beyond that very singular approach. Every time, 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:56.359 every time you want a robot to do something, in 0:19:56.400 --> 0:20:00.040 addition to whatever it's primary function is, you've just to 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.800 increase the complexity of the build, the complexity of the 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:07.320 software sometimes the complexity of the interface. And obviously you 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.720 can only do that for so long before it gets 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:15.160 unmanageable and uh or the robots just crappy at everything, right, 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:18.719 It's just you can't, like sure and in theory can 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:20.639 do all these things, but it doesn't do any of 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:23.119 them well, and it's more frustrating to use than if 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:26.680 I just did them myself. That that's it's a hard 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:30.440 barrier to get past because it requires so much sophistication 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:35.280 from multiple perspectives, from multiple starting points. It's funny you 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:38.159 should mention that because since c E S. Since I 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:41.320 was covering robotics at CES, I was particularly interested in robotics, 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:44.679 and as part of my daily tech news roundup podcast 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:48.840 I Report, I reported on a hotel in Japan who 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:54.600 was retiring half of its two hundred and THIRTIESO robotic workforce. 0:20:55.160 --> 0:21:00.840 Mainly because the people required to keep those robot bots 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:04.960 on task basically were made it kind of silly to 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:08.199 have the robots themselves. So people would like walk up 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:11.160 to those robots and say where can I catch a cab? 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:13.800 And the robot would be like, I have no idea 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:15.960 what you just said. And then people would say, well, 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:17.920 where's a good place to eat? And the robot would 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:20.080 be like, I have no idea what you want. And 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:22.280 so they ended up having to turn to a person 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:26.960 to answer those same questions because once again, these the 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:29.520 people that were coming into the hotel had this expectation 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:31.719 that a robot will be able to answer whatever questions 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:33.879 that I should have. Personally, I think they should have 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:35.560 just replaced it with a Google Home and called it 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.800 a day. But you know what, beggars, camp be choosers, 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:41.320 I suppose. But they actually had to retire half of 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:43.960 their They actually had the term used in the article 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:47.959 was laid off their half of their robotic workforce because 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.040 they had to have so many people supporting those robots 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:53.359 that it was it made it silly to have the 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:55.800 robots in the first place. This this is the robotic 0:21:56.080 --> 0:22:00.520 equivalent of using a vacuum on a car pit and 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.000 you're running it over a piece of fluff that's on 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:05.600 the carpet, and the vacuum runs over it, and you 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:07.400 pull the vacuum back, and the fluff is still there. 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:09.840 So you push the vacuum over it again, you pull 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:12.040 it back, it's still there. You've been down. You pick 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:14.119