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The automation revolution, where most of our jobs are replaced by robots and we spend the rest of our days floating around on rubber rings sipping piña coladas, has hit a snag: a Knightscope K5 security bot appears to have fallen down some stairs and drowned itself in a water feature.
The scene, which took place at the mixed-use Washington Harbour development in Washington DC, was captured by Bilal Farooqui on Twitter. One local office worker reported that the K5 robot had only been patrolling the complex for a few days. Knightscope said in a statement that the "isolated incident" was under investigation, and that a new robot would be delivered to Washington Harbour this week for free.
We first wrote about the Dalek-like K5 back in 2014. The first bots were deployed on campuses and shopping complexes near the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California. The company has never disclosed how many robots are on active duty, but this is the first time I've heard of a K5 deployment outside of Silicon Valley.
The K5, which is equipped with lots and lots of sensors, is ostensibly an interesting piece of high-tech kit. It has a 360-degree video camera array, sensitive microphones, air quality sensors, and even thermal imaging capabilities. The cameras can apparently scan up to 1,500 car number plates per minute; the microphones can detect gun shots and other notable sounds. Autonomous mobility is provided by a mix of lidar, radar, and the video camera array—but given that it missed the steps down into the Washington Harbour water feature, perhaps the software needs tweaking.
Source: ArsTechnica
Also at BBC. Knightscope autonomous robot.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by c0lo on Tuesday July 18 2017, @09:23PM (4 children)
... nobody cares about the dreams of electric sheep (or of any security sheep for that matter).
Let those sub-intelligent humans care about groping other unsecure sheep inside airports and feel important for doing so, I'm outta here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday July 18 2017, @09:38PM (2 children)
I think the obvious explanation is much simpler: This bot had a conversation with Marvin the Paranoid Android.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday July 18 2017, @09:44PM
To keep with the mood: RIP, Alan Rickman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @04:44PM
It was drunk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @09:49PM
Looks like it's pretty easy to take this robot off line, just throw a blanket over it. Could be a fitted "car cover" if you want to make sure it doesn't fall off too quickly.
Make sure to hold the blanket between you and its cameras, otherwise you'll be easy to ID on video...