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Boston Dynamics will now sell any business its own Spot robot for $74,500:
Robotmaker Boston Dynamics has finally put its four-legged robot Spot on general sale. After years of development, the company began leasing the machine to businesses last year, and, as of today, is now letting any US firm buy their very own Spot for $74,500.
It's a hefty price tag, equal to the base price for a luxury Tesla Model S. But Boston Dynamics says, for that money, you're getting the most advanced mobile robot in the world, able to go pretty much anywhere a human can (as long as there are no ladders involved).
Although Spot is certainly nimble, its workload is mostly limited right now to surveying and data collection. Trial deployments have seen Spot create 3D maps of construction sites and hunt for machine faults in offshore oil rigs. Less routine tests include helping hospitals triage COVID-19 patients and, somewhat controversially, working with a police bomb squad.
[...] "We mostly sell the robot to industrial and commercial customers who have a sensor they want to take somewhere they don't want a person to go," Boston Dynamics' lead robotics engineer, Zack Jackowski, told The Verge last week.
[...] One feature that Boston Dynamics is currently working on is remote teleoperation. A demo version of this feature will be available to potential Spot customers who will be able to take a unit for a test drive in a robot assault course in the company's headquarters.
[...] Although Spot is something of a celebrity in the robot world, it's still very much a limited product. The company has leased around 150 units to customers to date, and it's going to miss its target of producing 1,000 Spot robots this year due to the impact of the coronavirus. (It'll hit the target Q1 2021, says Perry.) Customers will also be limited to buying two robots at a time, and larger orders will need to be discussed with Boston Dynamics
It's nice to know that robots have good dance moves to entertain humans working remotely from home.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @03:20AM (4 children)
Does it come with an Ethanol_fueled, to play with, or is he still fired, for bigotry and perversion? And, they say, "conduct unbecoming". Poor Eth! He was so "well connected" until he blew it all away.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @03:29AM (3 children)
Fired? No, he got replaced with a Mexican. Why do you think he's so angry?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @05:08AM
I like to think, that SoylentNews had some part, in the firing of our resident bigot. Runaway is not far behind. The Mask issue will trigger him. Unfortunately, Arkanasas does not have as generous Unemployment benefits as the Socialist state of San Diego, and poor Runaway with have to put up with the Trump-loving, Liberatariantard, "you're on your own!" social safety net of his own failed state. Sucks to be unemployed in Arkansas, almost as bad a being employed in Arkansas. By foreign companies. Because you have a record. And that you are Runaway.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday June 17 2020, @05:17AM (1 child)
I offered to voluntarily hand that job over to Mexicans before I left, but for some reason the higher-ups wanted a (sort-of)White boy to be a fall guy, so I guess you wouldn't call it "replacement." Joke's on them, though, I still left them holding the bag.
The Mexican(s) can get credit for building the 2 Spots that were sold to the Chinese and then replicated by China's state-owned subsidiary, leaving the Mexicans and their buddies subject to layoffs due to competition since they were no longer needed. You could call it "poetic justice," or as the Chinese call it, phonetically in the English, "Ching Chong Nip Nong Chang."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @11:22PM
angry troll hides his tears :-(
Have a hug!
Your friend, now and always
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