host

I viewed this and had the kind of emotional reaction I had when I watched the first shuttle take off in '81 and perform it's post launch "roll over" maneuver....and again when I got to be an eyewitness standing just downrange of the launch of the shuttle mission that carried the Hubble telescope into space.

Where have we gone? How do we get back? I think the journey back will include technological "miracles", like the one linked here:

This short video demonstrates a "product" developed by Boston Dynamics and DARPA. It weighs 235 lbs. and can carry a 340 lbs. payload:

(Please watch the whole thing....)

If we have this kind of capability, why do we suffer an $800 billion annual trade deficit? Why are we transferring food crops to transportaion fuel, when we surely are capable of innovation to solve rising energy price trends, without simply making one product more available, at the expense of another...our food supply?

Why did we just suffer through the impact of the decisions of eight years of Bush and Cheney?

Why are all three presidential contenders, so compromised and uninspiring?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BigDog

dc_dux

Here is the other side of the coin....the kind of narrow-minded thinking that could hold the US back as the rest of the world moves foward with technology breakthroughs:

...a recent study conducted by the researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that two-thirds of American think nanotechnology is "morally unacceptable"

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/20/t...ally-unaccept/

more: Business Technology

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Jinn

I just watched that video a few days ago, and felt similarly.

Unfortunately, host, as dc_dux has noted, there are a lot of forces AGAINST innovation in this world.

While some breakthroughs will happen, there are many more blockaded by people who disagree with them. Nanotechnology is one, and so is stem cell research.

For every person supporting an innovation, there are probably at least three people opposing it; one who believes it is unethical, one who is making too much money in the current system and doesn't want it to change (RIAA, for example), and one who is too self-concerned to care about the innovation because it doesn't directly affect them.

"BigDog" and our Space Program have both flourished because they don't yet present a 'danger' to those who matter (ethically, financially).

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Ustwo

I am very impressed.

I would not thought it was possible to link 'cool robot walking' to 'Bush sucks' but yet I was wrong.

Apparently the robot is a symbol of Americas failure

I do find it amusing when people like to claim this is some sort of US problem, even when for example Europe has had protests over GM foods which none of the protesters even understand.

If there is an 'anti-technology' group in the US look not just to the conservatives, yes they seem to have issue with using aborted fetuses, but beyond that you won't find many of them. Look to the environmental left, and you will find a far stronger anti-technology, hell anti-human element.

White whales aside...

Amazingly impressive robotics, its motion looks like a hybrid of an insect and a mammal, and is a little disconcerting as it looked like a giant insect, something my brain doesn't seem to enjoy. I was especially impressed when they tried to kick it over, that was a very 'natural' recovery, something you would expect an animal like a deer to do. I'm equally impressed that its self contained, all the examples I've seen of this kind of robot have always had external power and hydrologics.

So even if the political point is typical, the video was worth it so thanks host.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

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Cynthetiq

Amazing host, thanks for sharing it.

We make cool things all the time, we just don't market or distribute them very weel. They are also very expensive and we can't seem to drive the price down even after years of being manufactured.

We don't sell the miliatry grade technology for long lengths of time. Maybe in 20 years we'll have these helper bots to help us cary loads from truck to backyard/garage.

Dean Kamen the gent who made the Segway acutally made this first. This was licensed to Johnson and Johnson but I believe they are having problems with en masse insurability of the product. That was the last I heard about this product many years ago.



iBOT® Mobility System - Standard Function


iBOT® Mobility System - Stair Function


iBOT® Mobility System - Balance Function


iBOT® Mobility Sytem - 4 Wheel Function


This application is a great example of how we can innovate, but we can't drive prices down. Those Rascals, are all over the place, but require much more infrastructure changes than this product.

Apparently people want Aibos from Sony which does nothing in comparison to what this application of robotics does.

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Ustwo

It has nothing to do with marketing and everything to do with market.

A very high tech piece of equipment and a small market will by default always be expensive. Its amazing that they are available at all, for any price and thats the accomplishment.

On the other hand I'm using a massively high-tech piece of equipment to type this post, state of the art, and affordable, but its also got a huge market and competition so prices will be lower.

Were there only one computer manufacturer and only 10,000 potential buyers this computer would cost what a Cray used to.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

host

Do you have one of these in your office, I read that your competition in Chicago does:

<img src="http://blog.modernmechanix.com/mags/qf/c/PopularScience/6-1939/med_dentist_movies.jpg">

Cynthetiq

true, but how many TVs are still made in the USA?

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Ustwo

Domi arigato Mr Roboto

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Seaver

I've seen those. The problem is A) they are expensive, and B) like the Segway, they still tip over on a semi-regular basis.

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shakran

The other problem is that not everyone who needs a wheelchair can use the thing. You have to have some upper body strength for the stair climbing feature because otherwise you run the risk of flopping out of the chair. Additionally, your average disabled person who is in a powerchair is not going to feel comfortable teetering up the stairs balanced on side by side wheels. The wheelchair is a disabled person's legs. A fall down the stairs would not only possibly damage or kill the person, it would definitely damage the chair.


A good powerchair these days costs between 20 and 30 thousand dollars. Sometimes more. A really spectacular insurance program will generally cover most of that. I don't even want to imagine what that thing costs, and insurance probably isn't going to see a legitimate medical need to ascend stairs when most of the public world is (or at least claims to be) powerchair accessible.

"But if they have stairs at home they'd have to move to an accessible house to use a powerchair" you say? Yup, that's true, but accessible homes are not considered durable medical equipment and are therefore generally not paid for by insurance. - - i.e. the ins. company doesn't have to pay, which is all they care about.

those Rascals are cheap pieces of crap that are all over because even crappy ins. companies tend to not kick up too much of a fuss about paying for them. There is a very, VERY, big difference between a Rascal and, say, a Permobil.

Long story short on the iBot? Neat idea, very VERY limited number of people who could make use of the thing, and has nothing whatsoever to do with "the US invents it but can't bring the prices down."

Cynthetiq

actually I'm going to stick with the "US invents it but it can't bring the price down" angle. How many consumer items does the US actually invent AND then produce? Or do we just move onto the next technology allowing the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, manufacturers to knock off the same product and make it into a cheaper consumer item which does sell.

The Apple ipod is an anomoly, but an example of how a well designed product will sell enmasse.

The point that host has made in this thread isn't about ibots and it's limited use, or the big dog and how we'll never see those things about either, no it's about how good the technology is that the US develops and doesn't make it into the hands of the general consumer wherein a company makes a profit.

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Ustwo

How are the unions in those countries?

Just saying

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Cynthetiq

I think Korea has some sort of effective unions, but that's only because I've seen and heard about groups of workers being on strike back in the 80s and 90s.

I think that actually underlines how the ipod is effective since they are made in china but the profit from those sales goes to an American company.

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Yakk

I don't get it: Moving assembly to China is driving prices down.

There are millions of really poor Chinese people eager to do work for far less than you could live on in a modern, wealthy western democracy. If we wanted to drive prices down locally, all you would have to do is produce a massively poor under-class and store it locally.

This isn't very compatible with democracy, and causes a massive amount of crime, and generally sucks 3 ways from zero.

Employing cheap labor is useful. Keeping poor people away from you is useful. Thus, having a supply of cheap labor overseas is useful.

In exchange, you can pay the poor people overseas a massively increased wage and increase their standard of living. Given a generation of two, those people educate their children and produce a wealthier society that produces higher increases in value, and becomes less suitable for basic assembly. You then proceed to find another reasonably politically stable place that contains huge numbers of dirt-poor people, and trade with them, eventually lifting them out of poverty.

Repeat until absolute poverty is eliminated, or every absolutely poor region of the world is politically unstable. Hopefully by that point you have decent robotics to make skilled labor nearly as good on a priceerformance ratio as cheap unskilled labor, and you continue growing...

But no, you shouldn't expect paying someone a first-world standard of living to to grunt construction of a special-purpose small-market high-development cost device will be cheap. It is when you can spread the development cost over many consumers, and find the best price/performance production facility, that the price of something can be driven into the floor.

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