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Robot Cuts Hair, Sort Of
(Robot cuts hair)
Performing this procedure is a "Multi-Arm Unmanned Ground Vehicle" from Intelligent Automation Inc. (IAI), a Rockville, Md.-based R&D firm focused on AI applications. Its three arms provide more degrees of freedom than can be safely used by a human remote operating hair-butchering implements, but they're probably great for the tasks that the robot was actually designed for, which include backpack inspection, tool handling, shovel manipulation, door breaching, knot tying, and tackling IEDs.
FYI, readers: before you use the hair-cutting robot, you should make use of the Panasonic hair-washing robot.
Heinlein writes about a device that automatically grooms you in his 1942 novella Beyond This Horizon:
He pushed his face for a moment into the capillotomer. Shave completed, the booth sprayed him with scent and dusted him off. He was beginning to feel like himself again.
(Read more about Heinlein's capillotomer)
Update 08-Jun-2016: Take a look at the barber helmet from Ben Gleed, King of Speed (1939) by Don Wilcox. End update.
Via IEEE Apectrum.
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