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DannyB [soylentnews.org] writes:

From The Verge [theverge.com]
Boston Dynamics will now sell any business its own Spot robot for $74,500 [theverge.com]
Yours for the price of a Tesla Model S

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 [theverge.com], and, as of today, is now letting any US firm buy their very own Spot for $74,500. [bostondynamics.com]

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 [linkedin.com] and hunt for machine faults in offshore oil rigs. [akerbp.com] Less routine tests include helping hospitals triage COVID-19 patients [theverge.com] and, somewhat controversially, working with a police bomb squad. [medium.com]

[ . . . . ] “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. [theverge.com]

[ . . . . ] 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.

This will let customers try before they buy at a time when travel is restricted by the pandemic, Boston Dynamics’ vice president of business development, Michael Perry, told The Verge. “Some of the customers we’re speaking to are in the ‘shut up and take my money’ mode,” says Perry. “But others say, ‘I’m interested in Spot, but I want to come to your lab and drive a robot or for you to come visit me.’” Teleoperation helps solve that problem.

I was able to try the teleoperation feature myself, driving a Spot unit around the company’s Boston testing range from my home, some 4,000 miles away in London. After logging in to a web app on Boston Dynamics’ site, I was able to set up my camera view, choosing from external cameras in the company’s lab, Spot’s own cameras, and a 3D map of its surroundings generated by the machine itself, and then move with the WASD keys.

[ . . . . ] 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

[##### EDITORS: choosify from ONE of the following, or something else . . . #####]
It's nice to know that robots will never be used for bad things^tm.
It's nice to know that robots are now available during this time when many people find themselves unemployed.
It's nice to know that robots have good dance moves [youtube.com] to entertain humans working remotely from home.

Original Submission