iGeneration

Charlie Osborne
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Video: Remote beer robot; the office Holy Grail?

By | July 8, 2010, 11:41pm PDT

Summary: Possibly the best office employee you will ever have: a robot which fetches you beer as you work away at your desk. Who needs a (human) assistant, after all?

Powered by Linux through a web interface, those working in the Willow Garage office have developed and created the PR2 robot platform. Even with incredible technology and robot design, they have one just lurking about the office as their beer slave.

The PR2 robot, featured last year on Engadget, can be told which beer to get and from which fridge, using its cameras to determine which beer is the right one, open the door, pick it up, deliver it to your desk - and it can inform you if the fridge is out of stock and the alternatives it can see.

Two points: a gender neutral robot fetching beer for its fellow male colleagues negates office sexism, and secondly this is absolutely awesome and these guys should be an inspiration to the Generation Y.

Though, drinking beer at work? Probably not in England, anyway.

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Topics

Holy Grail, Generation Y, Video, Robots, Linux, Emerging Technologies, Operating Systems, Software, Zack Whittaker

Zack Whittaker, a criminologist who studied at the University of Kent, Canterbury, is a journalist, writer and broadcaster.

Disclosure

Zack Whittaker

I worked briefly with Microsoft UK in 2006 but no longer have any connection with the company. Regardless, I remain impartial and unbiased in my views.

I don't hold any stock or shares, investments or industrial secrets in any company, but have signed confidentiality agreements with a number of UK and U.S. organisations, whose names I am not at liberty to disclose.

I was involved with Kent Union, the University of Kent's student union, undertaking voluntary, non-salaried, elected positions between early 2009 and mid-2010.

No other company, body, government department, non-governmental organisation or third sector organisation employs me or pays me a salary in any capacity whatsoever.

As a freelance journalist, whenever expenses are given and taken by a company that is not CBS Interactive, these will be disclosed in each relevant post to ensure transparency.

I currently work with a UK law enforcement unit, but this is an entirely separate position which bears no connection to other work.

(Updated: 23rd October 2011)

Biography

Zack Whittaker

Zack Whittaker, criminologist who studied at the University of Kent, UK, is a journalist, writer and broadcaster.

After studying criminology at university, though still in his early-20's, he has already had a series unconventional work and voluntary positions. He has worked with researchers studying neurological illnesses like Tourette's syndrome (which he suffers from), has given lectures on the nature of disabilities in the public community, and occasionally ends up speaking on television and radio discussing the events of the day.

He first had academic work published at the age of 22, then still an undergraduate, and has been cited by a wide range of publications: from the Huffington Post, Business Insider, AllThingsDigital, The Atlantic Wire and CBS News.

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