Back when the Segway was first introduced in 2001, people stated, in all seriousness, that it might be more important than the Internet. Well, it didn’t quite work out that way, but the company found its niche, both in personal transport and Kevin James movies. Now, though, it wants to go one step further, and sell you a robot butler.
The Segway Advanced Personal Robot is pretty much all there in the title. A collaboration between Segway, Intel, and smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi, the idea is that you can use the little guy as a Segway. But, if you step off and trigger an app, a bundle of electronics in the stem rolls open and it becomes a semi-autonomous robot following you around, carrying your stuff, answering doors, and generally serving as a little portable buddy. Intel’s own CEO claims to have five of them around the house.
The idea is that as it rolls out, developers around the world will engineer new hardware and software, so it will reply to vocal commands, have interchangeable sets of arms and tools, and generally be more useful. That said, as high-quality as path-finding, depth-sensing and other tools have gotten for robots, one suspects that the Advanced Personal Robot might not quite live up to the title. But at the very least, Paul Blart will have a little sidekick for his next movie.
(Via Wired)