TECH TRENDS 2020: The year of the robot.
Dave Skorepa
You
may have been distracted coming into the New Year by the threat of World War 3 trending on Twitter, so it’s totally understandable if you missed all the cool tech headlines that came out of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) out in Las Vegas. Don't sweat it, getting drafted to fight in the end of the world is a big deal.
When all that settles down, make some time to learn about all the crazy robot stuff that's going on at the moment. That's right, we're just weeks away from a real-life Micheal Bay Transformers sequel.
Charmin debuts a toilet paper robot and a bathroom smell sensor at CES 2020. I... I'm sorry about including this one, but if I have to know about it, so do you. I just hope he doesn't do double duty as the pizza making robot (ha, I said "doodie").
The Boston Dynamics robot dog has joined a bomb squad. Okay, this is more like it. I would maybe rewrite that headline to say "Badass robot dog given appropriately badass robot job."
Here's a roundup of some of the wackier, yet still very real, robo-headlines you can see this year.
This walking package-delivery robot is now for sale.
The headless robot cat company has made a headless robot kitten.
This is tame by comparison, but the "now for sale" part intrigues me. This robot is shaped like a humanoid, walks upright, and can carry stuff. Let's be honest, this is just a DIY Terminator robot kit. Honey, it's time to empty the 401k!
Yep. You could already buy a robo-cat that doesn't have a head for some reason, and now you can buy Petit Qoobo, a kitten version of Yukai Engineering’s same freakish design decision. Speaking of robotic balls...
Samsung’s new Ballie robot is like a real-life mini BB-8. Picture the love child of your Alexa and a tennis ball. Now your Alexa can annoyingly follow you around until you step on it, fall, and end up crippled from your strange new robo-assistant being underfoot. Probably not a great purchase for people with dogs either.
Robot-made pizza goes head-to-head with the best Las Vegas slices. Wait, so we finally get robots and this is what you want them to do? Make… pizza? Do they cook it with shoulder-mounted laser cannons at least?
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Roomba’s robot vacuum could grow arms in the near future. Again, it was the wording of the headline that grabbed me. I know robots can't spontaneously mutate and evolve new mechanical parts, but this headline does sure conjure a picture of this little bastard hiding under my bed, building itself shoddy arms from junk it found lying around my garage, reaching up, and choking my unsuspecting throat while I sleep. Or yours. Sleep tight.
This article is sponsored by Aztek, a web design, development, and digital marketing agency located in downtown Cleveland.
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