Retrofuturism finally gets it right: 1959's Roomba
That mechanical maid, scurrying across the floor like a hovering robot cockroach. That's a Roomba.
[via BotJunkie via Modern Mechanix]
That mechanical maid, scurrying across the floor like a hovering robot cockroach. That's a Roomba.
[via BotJunkie via Modern Mechanix]
jkhchan on Mac OS X Netbook Compatibility...
"Two days ago I following the instruction..."
dew_drops on A month with VIA's Artigo A200...
"Wow its really cool! The u torrent and i..."
liquide on Cars! Pairing Mercedes with iP...
"Every phone should require a real pairin..."
topugg2009 on Video Review: Vita-Mix 5200 Bl...
"ugg boo..."
topugg2009 on Video Review: Vita-Mix 5200 Bl... "ugg boo..."
topugg on Gadget Fiction: The Winners! ... "ugg ..."
topugg2009 on Video Review: Vita-Mix 5200 Bl... "ugg boo..."
topugg on Gadget Fiction: The Winners! ... "ugg ..."
topugg2009 on Video Review: Vita-Mix 5200 Bl... "ugg boo..."
topugg2009 on Computer Repair Flowchart... "ugg boo..."
topugg2009 on Computer Repair Flowchart... "ugg boo..."
topugg on Floppy disk purse... "ugg ..."
topugg2009 on Computer Repair Flowchart... "ugg boo..."
topugg2009 on Computer Repair Flowchart... "ugg boo..."
topugg2009 on This is the type of fruitless ... "ugg boo..."
topugg on Floppy disk purse... "ugg ..."
topugg2009 on This is the type of fruitless ... "ugg boo..."
topugg on Tablet computer gallery... "ugg ..."
topugg on Tablet computer gallery...
the latest
latest episodes
wow yeah... but i think it's still in the box ;)
I have that chair.
I *heart* Danish Modern!
They even got it right that you can't help standing around watching it work.
Also: kitchen web browser.
We must find this copywriter! Nostradamus has got reborned!
People have a tendency to immediately dismiss mid-20th-century futurism as completely inaccurate, but they often get hung up on the fact that the predictions were made within the cultural constraints of the time period. Technologically, they actually got a surprising amount of things right in their predictions of the times we are currently living in. We may not have flying cars (yet) but the personal computer, the cell phone, the internet and home video cameras and so forth have come to pass, and all were predicted in the 1950s or earlier.
To me roombas are like plastic horseshoe crabs picking through the floor's detritus looking for pant legs to consume.
I think the roomba is a sort of Schrodinger's device... so many books/ tv shows/ movies set in the future depicted little robot helpers that the concept was planted in the public unconciousness until the time that the technology was in place to bring them about. Also see: anthropomorphicizing of robots (Sony's Aibo and Asimo) and self-driving cars (M*B and BMW's adjusting cruise control and autobraking functions).
Essentially, if mankind had not dreamed them up 40+ years ago, we would not be making them today.
And in that spirit... where the hell is my positronic, 3-laws safe robot assistant?
@ZUZU #9 - *sigh* that film depressed me so much. It wasn't a bad watch, for an action flick... it just had basically nothing to do with the book.
Hell, Robin William's Bicentennial Man had more content from I, Robot.
I'm also a fan of Alex Proyas as a director, generally, although the latest film he was attached to looks like a stinker. (Maybe it was his "deal with the devil" to be allowed to release a director's cut of Dark City.)
Bradbury had "mechanical mice" But? Despite it's authorship being in some dispute, It's also a concept attributed to Eric Frank Russell- there was a 1941 story featuring mechanical mice of sinister design. Which made me recall Asimov explaining some robotic devices as not needing the laws. Hmn- how many Roomba owners are cat people?
Also,
People from the future will cast no shadow, and rectangular tables will cast round shadows.
Something wrong with light physics in the future. Maybe 'cuz light is being sucked by a Large Hadron Collider??? (That's vision)
Greetings form a Roomba (and cat) owner.
If I'm looking at the photo correctly, the "round shadow" is a design on the floor.