It's called a Roomba. I'd seen advertisements for these things way back when they came out, I think in a SkyMall magazine, and always got a laugh thinking that 1) there's no way a robot vacuum the size of an obese hockey puck could do as good or better a job as a human with a stand-up vacuum; 2) how the hell will these things actually get EVERY spot without knocking down or at least scratching tables and crap?; 3) I'm more likely to ride around on a hover-board at some point in my life than I am to ever own a robot. Well a few weeks ago, my wife reached the point in her pregnancy every man dreads: when she is unable to stay on her feet long enough to do housework. Since she could no longer work the vacuum, and since there's no way in hell I was gonna vacuum these damn Saltillo floors because I'm lazy and I'd rather have a beer and watch someone else do it, we settled on the next best thing: our first robot. We bought it (for much cheaper than Amazon) at Costco, and it came in a box so light I was afraid to open the car windows lest it fly out. I was immediately suspect of my purchase, so I started drinking before I even opened the box at home. Took like ten minutes to setup, and I didn't read the instructions because I figured anything that expensive better be easy enough to setup without instructions (even though it turned out ok in this case, I don't recommend it for most scenarios). Well turns out, the thing is incredible. One of the best quality-of-life purchases I have ever made, because of the time-cost savings, the savings in energy of doing a menial chore, and the fact that it cleans damn fucking well. It also means that once my wife pops the kid out she'll have more time to other house-hold things, like maybe iron my shirts instead of take them to the cleaner? .... And yes, I did name him "Number 5." Spoiler My wife had no clue what that was in reference to. I told her "you can watch the movie with Colt when he gets older and has a proper childhood"... she didn't think that was funny. Focus: Robots. I'm talking in the domestic, private-citizen sense (otherwise would be another thread... ANYONE???). Where do you see this technology going? Where do you think the domestic-robot technology is lacking? Is it more helpful than harmful, or the other way around? Do you have any personal experience with it? Thought you'd see the day when you say "I just bought my first robot"? (I know I didn't, and I grew up in the generation that was supposed to.) Alt. Focus. Existing under-rated or over-rated technologies.
My parents have a Roomba, which was a retarded oversight on their part. They have slightly different levels connecting certain rooms in their house. The family room is 2 steps lower than the kitchen, so 5 minutes after they turned the Roomba on, he tried going into that room, fell down the stairs and killed himself. Which was weird, because I thought they weren't supposed to do that. Other than that, I'm all for using robots various uses in daily life, civilian and military. Now Im not saying that we should have free-thinking cyborgs roaming around, because not only is that terrifying, it introduces a bunch of moral implications that I dont think we are ready to deal with yet as a society. Bump.
Over rated: Most smart phone apps. Outside of gps, most apps I've encountered have a had a high novelty value, but don't make my life any more amazing because of them. Throw fitbits in there. We have tons of fitness technology and yea they can help, but so can journaling exercise activities and calorie intake. Unless these exercise apps can shock someone awake and out of bed in the morning, I think they're over rated and people get caught up in features rather than actually exercising.
Overrated: The technology, apps, luxuries and touch screens that come standard in a lot of new cars and trucks. I speak English, perhaps with a slight southern accent, but it is English. My truck can't understand me, I might as well be chirping like a dolphin. The voice recognition navigation has only ever understood my voice and guided me to one destination. My Nissan knows when I'm saying "Zaxbys" and nothing else. And will any of that shit actually work in 20 years? 10 years? Has any touch screen ever lasted longer than a few years? I don't think any person knows, they always upgrade to newer hardware... phones, tablets, computers and shit always get replaced long before one might reasonably expect a car to last.
We all know that before we die the robots will enslave and farm us for our body energy. The horrible, horrible robots.
I agree with you most are over rated. But, I have three apps on my phone that I use all the time: Runkeeper, which is really just gps with a recorder; Flashlight, which is just activating the camera flash. But, GasBuddy? For a cheap skate like me, when I'm traveling? That actually saves me some money. So since it's free and a lot of people I talk to have never heard of it, I think it's underrated.
What the hell, Fiveslide? You can't just steal what I was going to say! Seriously though, Fiveslide was mainly talking about convenience/luxury features in cars (who the hell ever thought that touch-screens would be a good idea in a car?). What I really hate is "technology for technology's sake" on the functional parts of cars these days. I'm not saying we should go back to the days of carburetors and points-ignitions, but these engineers are just getting out of hand with all the computerization these days. Here's a couple of examples: - Drive by wire technology. I remember when I first heard about this in 1996; a GM rep came to talk to my auto shop class in high school, and he was practically creaming in his pants telling us about all the new technology that GM had in store for us. When he got to drive-by-wire technology, I knew that was a bad idea. I asked him what would happen if it failed, and he just blew me off, saying "There's too many fail-safes for that to happen, don't worry about it." But I wouldn't be dissuaded. I brought up some scenarios, and he gave me the same answer, but in a tone that said "Shut the fuck up, kid, you're ruining my presentation." Have any of you seen that news story about Chrysler vehicles that could be hacked, thereby allowing them to be shut off, steered, and braked remotely? That's exactly the kind of shit that I was talking about. - Electronic Control modules for various electrical systems, when a simple switch and relay works fine. Ex: My dad's 2007 Grand Marquis. When my dad bought this car, it has daytime running lights, which he hated. He asked me if I could do anything about it. I did some research and found that the only way to shut them off was with a Ford-specific scanner that only the dealers have, and the dealers all refused to do it for any price (supposedly it's a violation of federal law to do so). Earlier models of Grand Marquis had a simple control box for the daytime running lights that energized them when the engine was running; all you had to do was unplug it. The power door locks on my ex-wife's Chevy Cobalt don't work because the "door control modules" are bad. Yes, a module just to control the windows and locks in the doors. She doesn't want to buy new ones, so she just lives with manual locks. Stuff like that is one of many reasons why I drive an old(er) car.
Super on topic: Roomba Knock-offs: Overrated. I totally agree with the assessment that Roombas are the shit. All that vacuuming you didn't want to do? semi done. Want to make sure guests think your apartment is clean as shit? Look at all these vacuum lines. They must take care of the place. The problem wasn't that it didn't work. It was that it didn't work for as long as it should. Set the timer for 80 minutes? Get ready to reset in 3. Unless it hit the right groove. Every once in a while, fantastic dog-hair-picker-upper. The rest of the time? Possible fire hazard from the size of the spark every time I plugged it in.
If they are really smart they will perfect VR robot sex and lull half the population into slavery willingly.
In all honesty, Roombas seem like a technology more about having the 'bot than having a good vacuum, as this thread has pointed out; stair destruction, getting stuck, charging sparks, etc. Focus: I honestly think we're going to get to the point where servile ASIMO-like robots could be feasible appliances, but I doubt they'd be really good at being house-servants for the first couple installations without someone managing them. I doubt they'd ever get rights unless they were AI-installed and reactive to the point of being a robotic "organism" anyway, but that's so far off and at the risk of sounding pessimistic we "might not make it there" as a species, either through extinction or cataclysm setting us back a few eras of technological improvement. Right now we have Roombas that destroy themselves, toy robots that often malfunction and ASIMO tripping down the stairs like an old man who has a heart attack. Also taking stock of events like this; https://what-if.xkcd.com/5/ [Robots are still too non-scary as of yet to threaten humanity long-term] I will admit, I think we're never going to be able to perfect an android if we are unable to replicate dinosaurs and dogs beyond being over-expensive toys. I heard there's some hyper-realistic robot dog from Japan. I don't know much about it other than seeing it on some program or another on The Discovery Channel. If you follow any of Boston Dynamics' YouTube channel, you're probably familiar with the closest-to-science-fiction robots I have ever seen, and they're still off the mark of sentience by miles, but still amazing impressive. Just a robot that can "plan around" being kicked or losing balance in some way is revolutionary. Alternate Focus: I would say I think one of the most underrated and vastly-used technologies of the modern day is the Internet. It's become literally 'everything'. Anyone who has a computer and Wi-Fi gets the ability to access nearly anything they would want to be involved in, know, argue with or troll. If you were able to travel to even the 60's of North America and tried to explain the Internet to them, you might as well have tried to explain how the Sun functions to a medieval hedge-knight; he wouldn't understand what the fuck you were talking about and even if he stayed calm and tried to wrap his head around the concepts, he'd be lost still. I can access literally any sort of knowledge I'd like, I have ready-made online thesaurus, dictionary and auto-correct to help when I make human errors in my wording, there's countless ways to have fun on the Internet and mostly as a device it's used for pornography, house cat-related photography and social media.