A Social Media Network for Robots; Hydraulic Meetups?
Social shmoozing for gears, circuitry, hydraulic valves, and electronic sensors? We are now standing on the threshhold of the robotic age. Rest assured, business people will be on the cutting edge of making money for this new frontier. They are already one step ahead of the robots.
For people who hate vacuuming—and honestly, who enjoys it?!—the Roomba is one of the greatest inventions since sliced bread. A compact vacuum cleaning robot that can clean the floors while you aren’t even home, the Roomba is supposed to navigate around common obstacles, like furniture, with ease.
It’s Like Facebook for Robots!
A new social media network called MyRobots now allows users to connect and monitor their Roombas and other robotic devices remotely. It’s not exactly a platform where R2-D2 and C-3PO can use their Star Wars iPhones to share photos and “Like” movies, but registered robotic devices can post status updates like “The cat is in my way,” or “My batteries are low,” and inform their owners that their dust bin is nearly full.
It certainly sounds a little crazy to us non-robot owners, but Mashable reports that this is not the first time robotics fans have tried to give their household devices human-like traits. Launched in December 2011, MyRobots is a marketing endeavor from RobotShop.com, which sells personal robotics including Roombas as well as robotic lawnmowers, robotic pool cleaners and plenty of other robotic home technologies.
Robots can not only share their sensor information, they can give insight on their perspective of the situation. The company even claims that MyRobots can benefit robots from sharing and socializing interactions in the same way that Facebook and other social media networks benefit humans. How, you ask? In addition to notifying owners that objects are in their way, robots are able to communicate with one another and share info that is necessary to perform complicated tasks.
Allow Your Robots to Join the Social Media Movement
If you’re interested in connecting your robots to MyRobots, simply:
- Sign up and create a MyRobots account
- Add tokens to your account for free
- Add your robot to your account
Once your device is registered, you’ll received instructions on how to set up the connection on the robot’s side. The social media network for robots currently supports 17 different types of personal robotics.
Criticisms from the Public
Although the idea is sparking plenty of laughs from people who “just don’t get it,” MyRobots is also raising some ethical concerns because it is a social media site for robots that is owned by a for-profit robotics company. “The primary difference between MyRobots.com and a site like Facebook, Twitter, or Google Plus is that MyRobots is run by a company that wants to sell you robots: RobotShop.com,” Evan Ackerman explains at ieee Spectrum.
But if the fact that this social media network for robots is owned by a company whose goal is to sell you robots and related gizmos, by all means go ahead and sign up. In addition to wasting time at work every afternoon stalking your ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend on Facebook and tweeting with your elementary school classmates who you haven’t seen in 20 years, you can now learn which room of the house your robot is vacuuming. Hooray!
Meg Jones writes for a company that builds hydraulic valves for systems that provide support for necessary functions in civilazation. At their site, http://www.raphael-valves.com/waterworks-hydraulic-valves , see what products are available.
Posted in Social Networking and Social Startups. Tags: facebook for robots, MyRobots, social media for robots, social sites
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