Monty updates; Anybots at the Stanford TODAY (Wed) 12-6PM

Savraj (from Wattvision) and I spent some time at tonight's YC dinner playing with Monty. The robot now has stereoscopic vision with 3D goggles - which is very cool. The goggles also give you control of Monty's head. You can look up and down and the robot will do the same. If you look in a direction that Monty's head cannot physically follow the goggles will show a stiched-together view from the robots perherphial cameras.

Other nifties: You can turn around or bow and monty will imitate you.




Want to see more? Anybots will be showing QA (their newest robot) at the Stanford Cool Product Expo tomorrow (wednesday). Its open to the public so anyone is welcome to come.

Date: 4/8/09

Location: Stanford Arrilaga Alumni Center

Time: 12-6PM

More details.

The coolest thing you'll see at CES all day

Anybots just announced QA, a new tele-operated robot. I've been fortunate enough to have spent some time with it and it's pretty impressive. If you're going to CES, it's worth checking out in person. They're in the Robotics tech zone at the Sands Expo center (Booth #72239, Exhibit hall C).

The form factor is similar to Monty except much simpler. This means the cost will be in the thousands, not the hundreds of thousands. Unlike monty, QA is 100% battery powered, and gets 4-6 hours of runtime on every charge. Monty's pneumatics required it to be tethered at all times. Also, its much lighter at around 35lbs. Monty is too heavy to pick up.

The obvious disadvantage is that QA doesn't have arms and therefore no real way to manipulate its environment. While I'm sure that it was a hard decision to move forward without arms, it was probably smart. Arms are hard to get working reliably and require a custom user interface. QA can can be controlled by any laptop that's connected to the internet.

I can imagine a number of applications where a mobile telepresence robot is still valuable - even without arms. However it will take people more creative than me to think of all the ways QA could be used. We might see these robots patrolling dangerous neighborhoods in a few years, calling in the cops when any suspicious activity is observed. Who knows.

Edit, 10:09AM Anybots has updated their website with more details. Head over to their about the robots page.

Who is Trevor?

I'm working extensively with Trevor Blackwell at Anybots. Trevor cofounded Viaweb (which pioneered the online shopping cart, now Yahoo Stores), and is currently a principal in Y Combinator.

Trevor's an interesting guy. He's an extremely talented programmer, but really a kid at heart. It's clear that, when it gets right down to it, he just wants to work on cool stuff. In this vein, he's also not nearly as philosophical (or social) as Paul Graham.

It isn't that he doesn't have some very innovative and philosophical ideas; it's that he's not interested in taking the time to communicate them to others. It's like, if he were to sit down and write what's going through his head, he would be an order of magnitude less efficient. There doesn't yet seem to be a communication protocol that supports the bandwidth needed to stream his thoughts.

Instead, you can see manifestations of his thoughts in the stuff he does. The more time I spend at Anybots, the more I realize the potential the company has to dramatically change how we interact with the physical world. It's fair to say that the future Trevor envisions is probably different than anything we've ever thought of.

I'm beginning to realize that one of my jobs here will be to crystalize this vision in a format that others will understand.

Using the google maps street view to find startup-related easter eggs

Someone On News.YC found the Anybots / Y Combinator sign on google maps.

I then stumbled across this image, which looks like googlers waving to the camera from the googleplex.

Anybody else find any other startup-related easter eggs? What about Apple's first garage or the dorm room that Sergey Brin & Larry Page worked out of?

First week at Anybots

I just finished my first week working in the valley, and it's been a lot of fun.

Here's my desk/work area. I was able to assemble it out of some spare stuff that was lying around. Don't tell anybody, but I stole Jessica Livingston's sweet Aeron chair. Hopefully she won't miss it while she's in Cambridge!


And here's Trevor, using Monty to pour himself a cup of tea:


Housing is horribly expensive here, so I've been sleeping in a cheap motel down the road until I have find something affordable. This has been an interesting experience. I guess by "nonsmoking room," they don't actually mean you can't smoke - just you don't get an ash tray. That wasn't a huge problem for the previous tenant (who was a chain smoker, judging by the smell of the room); he just used the desk:


The room also has one of those beds that fold into the wall. That's pretty cool, except that the room isn't much larger than the bed. Therefore, when you fold it down, your only options in the room are to either to sit on it, or stand in the doorway:


Ah well, at least they did have wireless internet, so I can't complain much ;)