Do you remember watching the Jetsons and thinking how handy it would be to have your own Rosie the Robot? Students at Columbia University have begun developing a Rosie! Or at least something that could one day be a Rosie. Introducing the Talos.

The concept behind the robot is for it to be able to help with simple everyday tasks. For example, if you’ve forgotten your keys the Talos can let you into the house, or it can fetch the keys you left on the kitchen bench for you. The Talos has arms and a face, and can even answer voice commands. Although the voice commands aren’t very comprehensive it can respond to simple tasks like “follow me” and “Shake Hands”, on the brighter side, the Talos also knows how to dance. So as well as being voice controlled it can also be controlled by a remote application.

The team that designed the Talos did so for only $800 USD, which is considered cheap for a robot, but they do aim to develop another version at a cheaper price, so that it can be accessible to the average household.

The leader of the project sees the next step as improving object recognition and retrieval capability, meaning that the robot will be more useful and be able to do more of those general chores you don’t want to waste your precious time doing.

I personally think they should focus more on the life admin things most of us don’t like doing. Imagine a robot that could do your laundry for you? Do the dishes for you? Or even simply unstack it for you.

 

What do you think? Would you like your own Rosie the Robot?