In-Car Robots..."R2" Cute

On the Horizon
Who couldn’t use a little company on those long road trips? The advent of radio gave drivers that sense of riding with someone else. Obviously, radio falls way short of being a replacement for human interaction. Well…there’s always the phone. Cell phones quench that thirst to converse, surely. What if your needs are more diverse? Say you can’t drive another minute without your favorite tune blaring in your ear or you need to search a location on your GPS while speeding along the highway. Should you distract yourself from driving long enough to complete these tasks? These and many other minor dilemmas will soon be a thing of the past for drivers. In-car robots promise to “serve as a driver's partner to share the driver's feelings, react to the driver's situations, and communicate with the driver.”
Facial recognition software can already read and copy facial expressions successfully. Through constant video monitoring, these Robots would be able to read your facial expressions and determine your emotional state or level of alertness. The system would then offer music and lighting that would complement your emotions by calming you, waking you up, or just helping maintain your pleasant state of mind. The in-car robot possibly would suggest for you to pull over and rest, or maybe even attempt to cheer you up. In addition the robot would have control over all car electronics that required your input. Car gadgets would be controlled by the robot via voice command. These robots are in the developmental stages, car manufactures and after-market manufactures (Pioneer) have started displaying these technologies on the car show circuit. Lovable ‘toy-ish’ robots have popped up in concept cars like the Nissan Pivo 2 which was unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show last week.
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Robotic Techs Revamp iRobots

Were you the type of kid who would take apart and correctly put back together the toaster oven? Or maybe you rewired the blender to have an extra special speed for making that wood pulp you used to in your homemade paper projects. Well times have changed for kids these days, the old Rector set no longer moves by human muscle power alone. You can't just be mechanically inclined anymore. Programmable robotics are becoming a pervasive part of early childhood development. So what recourse are the adults left with these days except to steal some alone time with their kids favorite robotic recreation set; hardly, if you have a hankering for some electrical, robotic, and mechanical engineering you could just hack your Roomba or Scooba iRobot or get the hackers version, the iRobot Create, which is capable of anything your imagination can dream up and you and your brain can figure out, provided of course that the task involves the iRobot running along on the floor. How about this dot matrix based poster maker robot[Wyatt]. Complete with an extra wide vertically mounted sharpie that slides back and forth in order to write the letters which, of course, are really just a series of marker dots. Undoubtedly, it's easier to hand write your poster, or print a banner on your non dot matrix printer...but where's the fun in that. Creativity and technical knowhow enjoy a harmonious dance, when adaptations such as this are created. Now, with the FCC just last year approving the WiFi module for the iRobot, any number of programming commands can be given on the fly. So do something to satiate your creative appetite while wrestling with the technical challenges of programming. "Techies" pick your task and re-designate and re-program your own iRobot.

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