Here at CTOVision, we believe physical fitness is important. You won’t have the energy to use your Hadoop or chase down some Advanced Persistent Pandas if you don’t go for the odd jog or two. Don’t have time to hit the road? Jut not feeling up to it today? Would rather
make some centrifuges spin enjoy some tasty Persian food than exercise? We have got the solution for you!
IEEE Spectrum has a nice post on the Joggobot, a modified Parrot AR drone for the weekend jogger in your life:
Joggobot is an AR Drone that’s been modified by the Exertion Games Lab at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, to act as a jogging companion. Using its onboard camera, the drone locks onto the pattern on a slightly dorkier than normal jogging shirt, and flies in front of you to set a healthy and vigorous pace and help keep you motivated.
The Joggobot has some flaws, as IEEE observes. It lacks social media functionality, only has twenty minutes of battery life, and flies backwards. Its interface is also very inflexible, and some users want future versions to respond to hand gestures or work from preprogrammed heart rate settings like gym treadmills. Joggobot is part of what already is a growing market for personal lifestyle robotics.
Aside from the Roomba (the bane of cats on the Internet), the potential market for robot companions also includes household servants, pool table players, companions for the elderly, robodogs, and (more creepily) robotic surveillance devices.
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This post by AdamElkus was first published at CTOvision.com.
I’ll stick with my MP3 player as my running-partner for now lol