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In an idea straight out of science fiction, robots could soon begin patrolling Japanese offices shopping malls and banks

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050623/od_nm/japan_robot_dc

(I didn't knew how very old japan population is getting)

i was talking about this at work about a year ago. it just isnt practical. if someone steals a purse, what's the robot going to do? chase him down? or do it robocop style and whip out his bretta auto 9 and blow the dudes head off? we havent advanced enough in robot technology to have a fast robot AND have him be small, agile, and affordable. i can see this happening maybe 7 years from now when we have smaller circuitry, but not now with todays technology, it will be too clunky and too big.

but as to this rambling it doesnt apply to this robot, which honestly has no purpose at all. "The 109-cm tall robot will alert human guards via radio and by sending camera footage if it detects intruders, fires, or even water leaks."

oh yeah, water leaks, the #1 cause of death and business destruction. no intruders, i can see being practical, but since it cant take any actions but alert the police, by the time the police arrive, the intruders may have already taken off with all their money. now fires seems pretty useful if its loaded with flame supressants to hold off the fire until firefighters come.

all these people talking about robot police are way ahead of themselves. they're trying to make use of something that we have and useit in a way it isnt ready to be used yet. they're getting ahead of themselves.

Yes, but I think the main goal of these early trials is not getting the thief caught by the robot at this time, but watching what problems arise, seeing what works and what doesn't in the interaction of the robot with the people who is supposed to be there, learning from its errors, getting to work out better algorithms for patroling (so they are not so easily fooled like the military bots in Deus Ex, for example), so they have this information available when the time comes for designing the next one. After all, it took six generations to get Roy.

So, saying that it has no purpose is not true, I think. It is unlikely that they'd invest lots of money in things with no purpose.

An additional thought. Considering the recent love affair of police forces with tasers (particularly in the U.S. ... good God, they tase everything that moves nowadays, from 8 year old kids to 75 y.o. grannies), they might put a taser on these robots so they are "not lethal" but can start practicing human targets interception, something we know will be a highly "desirable" feature in robots over the next decades.

but i dont think roy started out as a toaster with wheels, lol.

i dont think it doesnt have a prupose, you make some good points, but for the cost...i think there's a bettery way to research this stuff.

I came across this on boingboing.net and thought folks might be interested. Here's the link to the original story.

Coincidentally, my friend at Siemens participated in programming of these little beasts...
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/0 ... s-security

Too late...they already have...
http://www.taser.com/products/law/Pages/taserirobot.aspx

No "LIL' B^ST^RD EMP KIT" available yet?