killer apps

“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
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Getting Disruptive With It

‘Disruptive’ is the latest buzz term headlining presentations at robotics’ conferences.  Wikipedia describes Disruptive as ‘an innovation that creates a new market by applying a different set of values, which ultimately (and unexpectedly) overtakes an existing market’, and provides several examples – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation.  Over the next years, many robotic innovations, some of course not yet known, will undoubtedly prove to be ‘disruptive’ as they transform our society and improve our quality of life. However, with all the negative backlash from the recent media about ‘robots taking jobs away from humans’, I’m concerned that the public, not knowing what the economic definition
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(Not) Burning Man

Wildfires are not just a problem in the U.S.; it is a worldwide hazard, and one that could highly benefit from robotics. There are already some excellent robotic technologies being developed for addressing wildfires, residential and commercial fires: A hybrid intelligent wildfire detection system by Insight Robotics LTD of Hong Kong that was successfully tested by the Guangdong Academy of Forestry and will be implemented throughout the Guangdong province in China. The Thermite firefighting robot manufactured by Howe and Howe Technologies FireRob, the MVF-5 Autonomous Firefighting Robotic Vehicle built by the Croatian manufacturer DOK-ING The autonomous OLE robotic firefighting beetle created at the University of Magdeburg-Stendal Firefighting robot
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Mariska Hargitay: SVU, and blurred lines

I was reading about Mariska Hargitay (am I the only one who didn’t know she’s the daughter of Jayne Mansfield?) in her nail-biting performance in the season premier of Law and Order SVU, in which she is a victim of rape. “When you’re acting,” she said on the Today Show [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoWVoe-Q4Mo[/youtube], “your body doesn’t know the difference [between] acting or being in reality, and that’s what presented the challenge.” I was struck by Hargitay’s admission. To think that telepresence, virtual reality, and the like, are part of our daily lives already evokes a pressing question. Will these technologies, like a professional
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