In the future, you may be able to walk right up to your local library robot and tell it what book you want. It will shuffle off, locate the book, lift it off the shelf, and bring it back to you. That's the dream of robot engineers in Spain who are working on developing robots that retrieve books from shelves using a combination of image recognition, voice recognition and navigation technologies.
It's all part of the dream to make robots more practical. After all, robots are interesting demonstrations of technology, but if they can't be helpful to the rest of us, they'll never succeed commercially. So robotics engineers are hard at work teaching these machines how to do things that save time for humans: Roomba sweeps floors, hospital robots shuttle supplies for health care workers, and industrial robots assemble cars. So why not have a robot that grabs library books for you?
Of course, you wouldn't need a robot at all if all the library books were scanned and loaded into an ebook format. But that would anger book publishers, who don't even seem to like the idea of public libraries these days. (It's all that darned sharing!)
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health author and award-winning journalist with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He has authored more than 1,800 articles and dozens of reports, guides and interviews on natural health topics, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2010, Adams created NaturalNews.TV, a natural living video sharing site featuring thousands of user videos on foods, fitness, green living and more. He also launched an online retailer of environmentally-friendly products (BetterLifeGoods.com) and uses a portion of its profits to help fund non-profit endeavors. He's also a noted pioneer in the email marketing software industry, having been the first to launch an HTML email newsletter technology that has grown to become a standard in the industry. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit consumer protection group, and practices nature photography, Capoeira, martial arts and organic gardening. He's also author of numerous health books published by Truth Publishing and is the creator of several consumer-oriented grassroots campaigns, including the Spam. Don't Buy It! campaign, and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. He also created the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds. Known by his callsign, the 'Health Ranger,' Adams posts his missions statements, health statistics and health photos at www.HealthRanger.org
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Thursday, July 22, 2004
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