A variety of robots were showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, USA, from 6 to 9 January.
Chinese robotics company Unitree demonstrated its boxer robot by pitting it against a human. Rowland Manthorpe, a technology correspondent, gamely accepted the dare and fought the G1 model inside a boxing ring, watched by a bunch of camera-shooting audience.
After hitting the robot’s chest with his fist and feeling his knuckle smashing into solid metal, the hurt Manthorpe changed tactics and just used kicks against the G1, knocking it down again and again, Sky News reports.
The reporter prevailed in the match as the robot’s lack of balancing and dodging ability often sent it crashing to the canvas. The robot’s defeat indicates that developers still have a long way to go in mimicking human actions.
Meanwhile, in Singapore, a robot that cleans dining tables are being tested by coffee shop and food court operators in the face of a shortage in manpower and the reality that hired cleaners don’t stay long in the unglamorous job.
At Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU) open-air Pioneer Food Court, operator Food Haven has installed a prototype of the table that replaces its tablecloth at the push of two buttons, Channel News Asia (CNA) reports.
The tablecloth is actually disposable sheets coming from a dispenser at one end of the 4-seater table. When activated, the sheet with food scraps and spills on it rolls to a compartment at the other end of the table.
The dispenser contains one roll of 30 sheets, good for three to four days of use before cleaners must replace it. A tablet connected to the table tracks how many sheets remain, according to CNA.
“We are trying to eliminate this dependency on manpower (with the automation of the cleaning process). So, every diner after... (they) are done eating, they return their trays. The next group of diner can just sit down with the press of buttons,” Food Haven director Shane Tay tells CNA.
The robot table has its benefits and limitations, such as lightening the workload of cleaners and large food scraps that can’t get through the narrow gap of the waste compartment.
An operator of a coffee shop adds that designing a round version of the table may be difficult.