Robot roundup: doctor cars, teleworkers, robogiggers, errant NAO robots

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Overrun-by-Robots1-183×108.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]This month your Editor’s been ‘overrun by robots’ in the news! Here’s the roundup for your end of August reading, with an emphasis on how humans interact with robot helpers, especially at work:

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/7-who-needs-a-hospital-when-this-self-driving-doctor-comes.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]The doctor’s car has been around since the 1904 Buick, but the Seattle firm Artefact takes it one step further by combining the self-driving car with a fully automated clinic on wheels that arrives at your home, minus the doctor. Step in and it takes your weight, BMI, posture, respiration, and other sensor-based measurements guided through augmented reality instructions. It has a telemedicine interface in case you need a live virtual doctor. Medication? It’s a dispensary on wheels. Treatments? It will take you to a real doctor or provides AI-driven comparative information on treatment options. Artefact’s concept is part of their endless health monitoring continuum of care, which far more than the Doc Car is a little…creepy. FastCompany Design

Many of us are remote workers, but what if you could be in the office via a telepresence robot? A writer for Wired adopted an EmBot from Double Robotics so she could ‘be in the office’ in San Francisco while living in Boston. Her adventures with human-robot office interactions, developing relationship protocols, self-identification with it, and its many foibles (technical and otherwise) are a hoot. Hat tip to TTA Founder Steve Hards

Clark Kent would activate a robot to take his place at the Daily Planet while dashing off as Superman. Could a robot be your cyberself, working to provide you with an income stream in retirement? Or could you invest in robots working in the short-term robo-gig economy? Joseph Coughlin of MIT’s AgeLab in Forbes is quite certain that we’ll be hiring robot helpers around the house (including serving drinks) and some of us will become robopreneurs, sending out our robots to work. Far fetched? Froyo franchise kiosks (already promoted on radio in the US) serve up robot-prepared and sold frozen yogurt.

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Nao.jpg” thumb_width=”170″ /]For your weekend reading (with coffee and a snack) is a study examining human reactions to a purposely programmed error-ridden NAO humanoid robot versus a behaving NAO in performing interactive tasks. The surprise is that people liked the faulty robot more than the perfect one. The study also gauged the human cues to errant behavior (sidelong gazes, laughter)–cues that could tell the robot it’s in error. To Err Is Robot: How Humans Assess and Act toward an Erroneous Social Robot (Frontiers in Robotics and AI) Second tipped hat to Steve More on SoftBank Robotics’ NAO here.