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How Long Have YOU Wanted A Household Robot?
Science fiction fans can't wait for a robot who can help out around the house - even though they've been waiting for over a century!
#WhosNext? Housekeepers of the world take note. This $5,000 Robot can now do chores for you around the house. Interested? (GiGadgets) #Robotics pic.twitter.com/to9E4Irmkz
— James Gingerich, @Expeflow #WorkEasier #RPA (@jamesvgingerich) May 29, 2021
Fifty years ago, Robert Heinlein's described a helpful home robot that he called "Flexible Frank" in his 1956 classic The Door into Summer:
Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? Answer: any work a human being does around a house. He didn't have to play cards, make love, eat or sleep, but he did have to clean up after the card game, cook, make beds, and tend babies - at least he had to keep track of a baby's breathing and call someone if it changes.
And fifty years before that, Elizabeth Bellamy described what she wanted in her 1899 story Ely's Automatic Housemaid:
It was clad in waterproof cloth, with a hood of the same to protect the head, and was shod with felt. The trunk contained the wheels and springs, and in the head was fixed the electric battery...I proceeded, according to the pamphlet’s directions, to point the indicator to the word “Bed.” Next, as there were three beds to be made, I pushed in three of the five little red points surrounding the word. Then I set the “clock” connected with the indicator, for a thirty minutes’ job, thinking it might take about ten minutes to a bed.
(Read more about the Electric-Automatic Housemaid Robot)
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 5/29/2021)
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