They Need To Teach This Robot To Nod Like It Agrees Even When It's Thinking About Something Else

Soon human office workers will not have to put on their pants or get up from their cubicles to attend meetings. This fall, a company called Anybots will start selling a robot called QB that is designed to attend meetings, on-site tours, or probably any other gathering or presentation that people can't or don't really want to be at in person. It looks a little bit like a vacuum cleaner or push-mower with video-camera eyes and a hat with a screen on it. (Or, as Scientific American notes, Olivia Newton-John.) A lazy human can control a QB over the internet from the comfort of his or her own desk. One can see what the robot sees, hear what the robots hear, and talk or shout at colleagues through a speaker on the robot head. There's even a laser pointer to point at stuff.

Scientific American editor Larry Greenmeier took a QB for a remote test-drive through Anybot headquarters and made a very entertaining video of it. (It's funny how he instinctively uses a robot voice when speaking to another QB he encounters.)