Microsoft Robtic Security Guards

Nice find.
I would much rather trust a robot security guard that ran on Linux though.
Just saying.

AndreF said:

So Microsoft is using Robotic Security Guards

Link

First of all Microsoft and Robotic shouldn't be in the same sentence ... I mean these are the people that can barely make a decent OS and now they want robotic security guards?

Second of all ... I want one.

I keep thinking I Robot for some reason.

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I'm reminded of Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio. I heard years ago development was stopped, but it looks like there's a brand-new version since the last (2008) version:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd146032.aspx
I had a short intro to that (and C# programming, a Microsoft-specific language) about five years ago. It's a large system, but it has simulators and drivers for all the popular robotics systems (hobby/educational stuff by Vex and Mindstorms as well as industrial robots).

The Really Good News is. according to the article:

Built by California company Knightscope, the K5 is ...

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so it's NOT actually made by Microsoft.

sabindanjoup said:

Nice find.
I would much rather trust a robot security guard that ran on Linux though.
Just saying.

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Fortunately, there's ROS ("Robot Operating System") that runs on Linux, created by the folks at Willow Garage, creator of the PR2 robot:
http://www.ros.org/
The PR2 robot is more of a research platform than anything else and it costs a few hundred thousand dollars, but to demonstrate its (and ROS's) abilities, here's a video of what a graduate student got it to do after (as I recall from an article years ago) a week's worth of work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy5g33S0Gzo

sabindanjoup said:

Nice find.
I would much rather trust a robot security guard that ran on Linux though.
Just saying.

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Yeah, my first thought, too. But then, nobody said they were running Windows.

'Course, nobody mentioned that they were all wandering around the campus looking for someone called "The Doctor" either.

Who cares about a robot security guard? I want a robot secretary. I don't care what system it runs on.

Btw, Andre, if there's some prize for whoever starts the most threads on Office Party, you'd definitely be in the running. You should check it out. There could be a set of virtual steak knives or something.

AndreF said:

I did win a virtual cup of coffee.

Too many neat things I saw recently. VFAT is an awesome thing though.

And so are robot security guards.

I'm just happy they're running on Linux. (ROS) as previously mentioned.

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Wait a sec, I didn't say the robots in the OP were running ROS, only that they weren't made by Microsoft. I saw no indication of what's in those things.