We have a robot similar to this at work. It's broken right now - maybe the battery is dead, maybe there's a software issue - and nobody's particularly interested in fixing it, because it never worked too well.<p>For one, on our model, there's zero peripheral vision. This makes it really hard to orient yourself in space - how far away is that wall? Did I scoot far enough past that doorway to swivel 90° to the right and go through it? Am I about to hit someone?<p>The same problem occurs when you're trying to talk to people. You can really only see two people who are standing in front of you. I'm not even sure if there's stereo sound - as there appears to be on the Snowbot, since he swivels towards people who are addressing him.<p>Other minor difficulties:<p>* it was difficult to park it into its charging station, which meant that sometimes it would just go comatose in a hallway.<p>* there's still a fair amount of lag, which makes it slightly annoying to have a conversation. Dialing someone over Skype/Hipchat/whatever-video is almost always the better option.<p>* sometimes you'd remote in, and be in an unfamiliar location because the robot wasn't returned to its parking spot. Since the whole point is to be able to access remote locations, we typically weren't familiar with the office layout, and would have to wander around aimlessly trying to get someone to help us get to where we needed to go.
I know this question might sound silly but can FBI "arrest"/confiscate/disable the robot itself because it's aiding a fugitive? And the person/company that owns the robot, can they by charged with aiding a fugitive?<p>IANAL but would love to hear what some more informed have to say about this. The law is constantly catching up to technology....
Snowden's making up to $1.25M/yr on speaking fees plus script consulting for Oliver Stone. Nice bump from gov't payscale. Though not enough to compensate for being under 24/7 FSB watch.
We have 3 Beams at 2 offices. Everyone assumed the first one would be just a Silicon Valley start-up novelty, but they are surprisingly useful and personal for someone out of the office to have a presence. They can drive right up to your desk and it's like having a conversation with a live person.
To add to the irony, "robot" comes from the Czech word "robotnik," meaning "slave."<p><a href="http://etymonline.com/index.php?search=robot" rel="nofollow">http://etymonline.com/index.php?search=robot</a>
> He recently collaborated on a track with a French musician, delivering a spoken-word monologue on surveillance over an electronic beat, and recommended the title: “Exit.”<p>A little bit off-topic, I was quite surprised when I clicked the link, to find that the unnamed "French musician" is, in fact, synthesizer <i>legend</i> Jean-Michel Jarre. Why not mention his name? It kind of sounds like it's some random dude on youtube, but he's right up there with Kraftwerk and not even a <i>little</i> obscure :)<p>On another note, I think it's funny how many similarities this music video has with the intro-theme of TV-series "Person of Interest" :) The imagery and especially the vocal effects on Snowden's voice in the second half :)
Couldn't the government punish the people who are facilitating this? In their eyes this would be akin to carrying around a camera for a Russian spy, no?
Weird, I remember running into (an earlier version of) one of these devices at a club in Hermosa Beach, CA around 1997.<p>I'm guessing that one was locally manned by someone nearby. It's possible that device did not have a videocam feed back either but that local person had LOS on the robot.