Sunday, January 15, 2012

Are smartphones actually the first robots?

A Smartphone can do many things, beside being a phone, game console and a web terminal. It can do things that no previous device could. Some are quite simple, like knowing where it is - well, as simple as a connection to a global space based positioning system could be - I'm always amazed of how naturally we take such things - anyway, the phone can do this, but can also, for instance, understand spoken languish or recognize a typical phone-to-ear movement. Both of the above (quite impressive) features are part of Apple's Siri - used by my brother to tell his smartphone things such as "Remind me to turn on the water heater when I get home". 

So Siri listens to my brother's voice (not an easy task), understands what he said (with a little help from server-friends), traces his location, and reminds him to turn on the heater when he gets home. If Siri had fingers, she'd turn it on herself - and actually, all you have to do is to get your heater an IP address, and Siri will turn it on, too.

So you verbally describe a task to a computerized device, like a small companion you carry with you. It listens and complies - by communicating with you, other people and machines.

Sounds like robots to me (: Hey, what do they need to walk for? It's a beginning, sure. But we can already see that the online Smartphone is a whole new device, that could lead to even greater revolution than personal computing. It's not about information anymore. Not even about interaction. We're starting to actually expending the reality sensing and interpretation by human... with the help of metal pals, and they're getting smarter by the second. No three rules are needed. Billions of people already on board. Great, really.



(And yes, I do think that Picalogo is one of the first truly robotic features... :)



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