Yeah, what the hell are you talking about? Cell phones aren't exactly something that was far off a few decades ago, since phones and wireless networks still existed then... just took some time before we put two and two together. Same with GPS, satellites and radar and all that already existed. Your examples are putting old technology to new uses. Your predictions on the other hand are on a completely different level.
How Timely is This News Article.
GENEVA (AP) -- Increased sales of industrial robots in North America and Europe have revived the global market for the machines, a U.N. report said.
The annual World Robotics Survey, released Tuesday, said a 26 percent rise in business orders coincides with an increase in the number of robots used around the home, mostly to mow lawns and vacuum floors.
The 380-page report, issued by the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe and the International Federation of Robotics, said 80,000 robots were sold between January and June. Orders for new factory robots rose 35 percent in North America and 25 percent in Europe _ in both cases mostly for use in the auto industry -- compensating for the continued decline in Japan.
"These figures indicate that a strong recovery is in sight," said the study. Amid economic gloom, the global robot market shrunk last year by 12 percent.
The total number of robots in use worldwide stands at around 1.4 million, the study said.
Japan still remains the world's most robotized economy, home to about half the 770,000 robots working in factories around the world, the study said. But, with the Japanese economy continuing in the doldrums, the number of robots has dropped steadily from a peak of 413,000 in 1997, as companies choose not to replace some aging machines. Last year, the figure was around 350,000.
"The market is falling in Japan," the report's author, Jan Karlsson, told The Associated Press. "There was a tendency at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s to robotize everything that was possible to robotize, and they went too fast."
But investment is likely to rise in Japan over the next decade, he said, because the country's falling birth rate means fewer workers will enter the labor force and robots will increasingly be needed to fill the gap. Similar population pressures are likely to increase investment in other rich countries.
While industrial robots continue to dominate, household use of the smart machines is taking off.
In 2002, sales of "domestic robots" -- mostly self-piloting lawnmowers and window-cleaners -- rose to 33,000. In 2001, the figure was 20,000.
The study predicted booming sales over the next three years. "The market potential is very large," it said.
Some 400,000 vacuum-cleaning robots will likely be in service by 2006, and 125,000 smart lawnmowers.
Prices for smart vacuum cleaners currently range from US$200 for the Roomba made by U.S. firm iRobotics to US$1,700 for the Trilobite from Sweden's Electrolux, which is not currently available in the United States. The robots work by feeling their way around the area they are cleaning, then spinning and continuing in a straight line when they hit an obstacle.
Sales of robot toys -- like Sony's canine AIBO -- also are rising, the study said. There are now some 550,000 "entertainment robots" around the world and the figure is expected to reach 1.5 million by 2006.
The vast majority of industrial robots are used on assembly lines. But increasingly, companies are using them for other tasks, the report said.
There are now some 18,600 "service robots," carrying out tasks from cleaning, handling hazardous waste and even assisting surgeons in operations.
In industry, there are now around 240,000 robots in the European Union, about half in Germany and most of the rest in Italy, France, Britain and Spain.
In North America, the figure is 104,000, but the survey said the region beat Europe as the biggest growth area, with orders rising 35 percent in the first half of the year. The machines also are making inroads in developing countries like Brazil, Mexico and China.
The increases have been fueled by price changes, increased sophistication and reliability, the survey said. Taking the global average, a robot sold in 2002 cost a fifth of what a robot with the same performance cost in 1990, the study found.
Re: How Timely is This News Article.
I think this article is also applicable in relation to potential for technology to assist sex, and the eventual development of sex slave androids.
Talk about sex, and people listen. Build a device that makes sex better, and, well, can you say, "Cha-ching"?
A new device manufactured in Dallas promises to help women achieve what they sometimes refer to as "The Big O." If you don't know what that is, you can stop reading now.
Charisse Davidson is a business partner of Stimulation Systems, the company that manufactures the Slightest Touch. That's the device that helps out with that Big O thing. Tonight on "Tech Live" we take a look at the gizmo to find out just what it is that has so many women in ecstasy.
Extreme sex?
"I've used mine solo, and I've used it in partner sex, and there's one at my apartment, and there's one at his apartment," Davidson says. "It's gotten to the point where we laugh and call it 'extreme sex.'"
As the name implies, the device is supposed to arouse women intensely and quickly. The company's website advertises that "just the slightest touch of physical stimulation will give the woman one or more orgasms."
Design engineers at Stimulation Technologies insist that Slightest Touch is not a sex toy. But SSI's Norman Comparini says, "I think that we like to say that we are doing this in the name of human pleasure."
Pad your ankles
The device, sold largely over the Internet for just under $200, looks nothing like a traditional sex toy. Women who use it stick two rubber plastic pads on their ankles and then plug the pads into a handheld control box the size of a Walkman. In theory, say the engineers, Slightest Touch stimulates accupressure points that link up with a woman's sensual nervous system.
But the concept confounds sex expert Dr. Gerald Melchiode, a nationally known psychiatrist at Dallas' University of Texas Southwestern Medical School.
"It doesn't conform to anything that I've understood in neurology," Melchiode says. "Stroking a woman's ankle is not what I've understood to be a major erotogenic zone."
To Melchiode, sexual arousal isn't in the ankles, but in the head. "Most of what happens sexually happens between the ears, so practically anything can enhance one's sexual pleasure."
Is it safe?
SSI engineers insist their own studies confirm that Slightest Touch really works, although those studies were never reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration because Slightest Touch isn't classified as a medical device.
The company's website addresses potential medical concerns by cautioning that it's probably not a good idea to use Slightest Touch if you're pregnant, have high blood pressure, or take antidepressants.
"We're not really getting around the FDA here," SSI's Comparini says, "and we're not making any medical claims, and we don't have a medical device here."
Indeed, it was never even intended for sex. Developers thought they were designing a better, more effective foot massager. But Comparini says when one of them tried it on his girlfriend, she immediately thought it might be good for something else.
Can I test it? Can I test it?
The testimonials don't stop there.
For one of SSI's volunteers recruited to test the device, Slightest Touch did so much for her sex life with her boyfriend that, she says, "It came to a point where it's like, 'I gotta unplug you, I can't take this anymore.'"
One question that frequently comes up is whether Slightest Touch works for men, too. Comparini says SSI didn't design the device for men, although he says there's anecdotal evidence that the device works like high octane Viagra. But, he says, the device makes it so much easier for women to arouse that it takes a lot of pressure off men to "do the work."
Charisse Davidson considers herself the company's primary product tester. "I've used it for two and a half years, almost three," she says. She credits Slightest Touch for enhancing an already exciting sex life.
But, she says, "for women who have difficulty becoming aroused, this can cut that time by about 50 percent."
Re: How Timely is This News Article.
the next version of this will have two massaging speeds. Normal and Who Needs A Man.
Looks like us guys will be ushered to the moon if things like this keep surfacing.
If they do make bio androids like VGX was tlaking about a few thousand years from now, you would ahve to assume there to be female/female android porn.
Jim: You ok, Gene?
Gene: Yea. I'll take this over the inside of a spaceship anyday.
Jim: I guess your cherry is officially popped now.
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