Why is that roomba so high. the current ones are just a few inches high - that video shows something at waist level or higher - does it fly? Why is it going to have to decide whether to vacuum the front of the oven - have I failed in my house cleaning all these years by not attempting to vacuum the faucets?
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Itâs to vacuum your privacy.
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When Roomba takes pictures of your toddler running naked around the house and uploads them to a central server, who will be prosecuted for trafficking in child pornography? The Roomba? The corporation? You?
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Iâm guessing youâve never seen it extend its legs while youâre around and you really think it stays on the ground while youâre at work?
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Would replying âYour cellphone?â be too mean? Or only if I included coordinates?
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Can a cellphone actively move, if we donât count the rather poorly controllable bristlebot-like actuation using its vibration motor?
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Iâm all for it. I can think of a half dozen pranks to start pulling on them. Start with the good olâ dead body on the floor. Move on with some guy left on some S&M device the night before. âHey⌠guys? Is⌠is the orgy over? Is someone going to untie me?â Matthew McConaughey seated in the middle of the bed room on a chair, looking at he wall, eating a whole water melon with one of those small sugar spoons.
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Is this going to be a Three-Laws Roomba?
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No, as long as there are cats, stairs and those foofy things on the ends of Persian rugs, Roombas will not take over the world. I had a Red years ago. The cats rode it down the stairs, and then whizzed on it. It died in a squeaking, beeping paroxysm of pain.
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Unoriginal observation: We are all living in cyberpunk dystopia. Who did steal that from?
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Short answer, nope. Longer answer: thanks to the symbiotic(parasitic?) relationship that phones establish with their hosts(who are your actual surveillance targets), they have surprisingly good effective mobility; and even better odds of being near the person of interest at any given time.
The forlorn roomba, abandoned to domestic servitude, has greater mobility; but enjoys much less âfreeâ transportation to convenient places. Whether this blunts its effectiveness, or leads to the evolution of increasingly sophisticated âcovert observationâ/âhostile entryâ/âhunter-killerâ algorithms is unknown at this time.
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The related question is whether cameras are the right tools for the job: they do have the virtue of being crazy cheap, thanks to our demand for them, and we get much of our spatial data from video processing; but computers are rather less adept(for the moment); but also have the option of other sensors.
The old ultrasonic rangefinders are a little long in the tooth, and a bit tepid for fine work; LIDAR and time-of-flight cameras are pricier; but substantially more capable; and I suspect that other options exist as well. The Roombaâs concern is with the geometry of things, not with things in themselves, so there isnât an immediate need for them to be able to âseeâ in anything analogous to the human fashion; so long as they know the shape of their environment.
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Not the comment thread I was expecting, but an extremely pleasing comment thread nonetheless.
Wait til they come up with the bigger version. http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/137/d/6/war_of_the_worlds_by_ramasg-d502etz.jpg
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I agree - not sure why cameras are needed. My Neato Robotics XV vacuum uses a laser to map the room, and it navigates incredibly well using only on-board processing power.
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If they are worried about the thing recognizing a faucet and a stove and a dishwasher they are obviously going to extend its capabilities to more than vacuuming into cleaning in general. âDear owner,â said the Roomba when I walked into the room, âyour kitchen faucet seems a bit worn and old fashioned. I can recommend the new Moen as an excellent replacement. Should I order it now or would you like to hear a few Amazon reviews?â
Oooh, Linux! This must give all you Apple haters around here hope that youâll have work in the future.
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This is a bit of a point, although admittedly a vast majority of the pictures possible from my cellphone would be of the inside of my pocket, or of the ceiling over my desk when itâs being recharged. Several years ago I realized that I had never purposefully taken a picture with my phone, so when it came time to replace it, I did research to find one without a camera. My provider at the time did offer such, and were happy to charge me for the privilege of having it at a time when many of their phones were free.
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The same can be achieved with a piece of tape, or with sandpapering the cover over the lens. Or by disassembling the phone and putting tape or drop of paint over the lens, if you want a more permanent, less outside-visible solution. Can take less time to do than to find a camera-challenged smartphone these days.
Oh, absolutely! The low-tech aftermarket solutions are always at hand, and some can even be disabled via OS settings (acknowledging that if youâre paranoid, these can be overridden remotely.) I was mostly just annoyed by the provider charging more for phones without a camera. (Not to mention the reaction I was getting from sales reps when asking for one without a camera. It really didnât seem that unreasonable a thing to me.)
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The joy of market, where the less popular options lose some of the volume-pricing advantage⌠
âŚthatâs why I usually go the modding way, as then I can double-dip, getting the specialty I want for the volume price.
