Photo courtesy of ‘Jeopardy’

“Alex, (as in Trebek as in ‘Jeopardy’), I’ll take, ‘Terms roboticists shouldn’t be using’ for $200, please”.  Yup, Killer Apps is another one on my ‘please do not use in front of the public’. Killer Application (Killer App) used in the robotics industry typically refers to the next big robot application that will be necessary for, or desirable by, all consumers.  Killer app is a commonly understood term in all of technology, but when it is specifically referred to as such in robotics, the public may (again) subconsciously think the ‘Killer’ is threatening, as in, “Oh!  Like the Killer robots used by the military!”). Can we not use the word ‘kill’ in our mention of the next Big One, and come up with something different?  Like Ideal App?