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"I do think there is a link in that in both cases, writing fiction or writing a computer program, at any given moment you're focusing on a very specific and particular thing—one word, one line of code, whatever."
- Neal Stephenson
 |
| Flexible Frank | ||
| An all-purpose household robot. |
| Housekeeping is repetitious and unnecessary drudgery; as an engineer, it offended me.
For the problem to be within the scope of one engineer, almost all of Flexible Frank had to be standard parts and must not involve any new principles...
 ('Door into Summer' by Robert Heinlein) 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. |
| From The Door Into Summer,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1956 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the household robot from Ely's Automatic Housemaid, by Elizabeth Bellamy published in 1899.
Thanks to @SMOF_ for the great cover graphic.
Thanks to Pete for suggesting this item.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Door Into Summer
More Ideas
and Technology by Robert Heinlein
Tech news articles related to The Door Into Summer
Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein
Flexible Frank-related
news articles:
- Twendy-One Robot Is Your Humanoid Helper
- REEM-B Robot Autonomous Helper Video
- Care-O-Bot Robot Does Chores One-Handed
- Basil Reification Robot
- ATLAS Robot Now Does Housework!
- Elon Musk et. al. OpenAI Household Robot
- Housekeeping Robots Easy To Imagine, Tough To Make
- VirtualHome: Teaching Robots To Do Chores Around The House
- Dyson's Secret Household Robots
| Toy-Like Robot Well-Being Coaches Are The Best |
| Scent-Identifying Robot Uses Machine Learning |
| Robot Imagines Itself (Not The First Time This Has Happened) |
| Intelligent Trash Sorting By Robots Predicted Long Ago |
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'LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE.'
'...a rolled-up sheet of a thin, dark metal strange to them.'
'... his contract with Space Industries required him to work summers in their orbital factory complex.'
'Space-weather men had been placed at their disposal...'
With each successive print, our model needed to incorporate more structural ingredients to minimize print failures.
'... Wendis stared thoughtfully at the brilliant lines on the spectroscope screen.'
'A special spot-wavex scrambler also caused his televised image, in the area immediately about his lips, to mouth the vowels and consonants beautifully.'
'... it was as if the upper part had been removed, like a cut deck of cards.'
Sumomo will get those office workers into good shape!
