FTA: "Buzzing you in when you get locked out, signing for a package, taking that frozen chicken out of the freezer while you’re at work, feeding your pet, and of course the veritable classic of robo-problems: getting you a beer." - imho these are terrible examples of what a robot could do... there are much simpler solutions for most of these problems than buying this: http://www.willowgarage.com/pages/pr2/overview
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FTA: "Buzzing you in when you get locked out, signing for a package, taking that frozen chicken out of the freezer while you’re at work, feeding your pet, and of course the veritable classic of robo-problems: getting you a beer." - imho these are terrible examples of what a robot could do... there are much simpler solutions for most of these problems than buying this: http://www.willowgarage.com/pages/pr2/overview
I thought that was so cool, until I got the price - $400,000 Something makes me think they're aiming for the useless academic toy market.
Once the software gets better the hardware can be made far less robust - and therefore cheaper. PR2 is a good start.