Deludia

Gee Whiz, WowWee

With lots of time and little to fill it I took up robotics as a hobby. I’m discovering this might have been a mistake. My life is filled with frustrations caused by cancer and the robots I’ve bought recently only add to the load.

There are a few different levels of robotics. I occupy some space in two of them. The first level are assembled products from companies like WowWee, Tomy, Hasbro and Tiger Electronics. These robots are usually attractive toys with some remarkable abilities. The come already assembled and anyone who can browse a users guide can do well with them. The next level is assembling different robots from kits that require assembly. You need a basic understanding of electronics and know how to solder to get along. These robots are usually not humanoid, but have wheels or tracks to carry them and are generally circular or rectangular devices. You also have to program these robots; without your guidance they’re inert. Last is the professional level. The folks that build these usually do so for a specific purpose. The military, law enforcement, manufacturers and movies use these.  Most often they have a select set of purposes and are pretty good at them. There are sub levels in between the major three types, but for the most part this is robotics for you.

The best of the home use (toy) robots are made by WowWee and include the Robosapien and a series of derivatives. Some of these can be programmed to do select moves from a menu of factory provided operations. While other companies make robots, WowWee made the most reliable, sturdy and usable ones. You can knock a Robosapien down a set of stairs and it will inevitable come back for more. Plus that, it was made to be “hacked.” Hacking robots means making a change in their hardware or software to achieve a purpose not envisioned by the manufacturer. I’ve spent hours with my Robosapien and it continues to be a favorite because of its versatility. It doesn’t get old.

I have 11 WowWee robots out of 18 models they made. Some of these aren’t available anymore. But the company puts out new robots still, and there’s the rub. I paid $230 for a Rovio; it is a small, 3 wheeled robotic webcam that can be operated by remote control with a computer. It can also be controlled and send its video out through the Internet. I bought one and had to return it because the battery wouldn’t charge. I returned it for replacement and the second one had the same problem. I got my money back after the second one. Then I bought a Mr. Personality. This is a humanoid that runs on 3 multi-directional wheels and allows you to download and give it new personalities. I went through two of these as well, each one having the same problem of refusing to respond to its remote control and acting oddly and locking up. I have a third one on the way, but if it has the same or any other issue, I will get a refund of the $120 I paid for it.

My point here is that the new stuff coming from WowWee is fraught with problems. I don’t give WowWee points for trying because I firmly believe that a product shouldn’t be released to the public until it has had its bugs discovered and fixed. Everyone in the world of computers understands this frustration if they use Microsoft Windows. Microsoft develops something and then sends it out for the public to buy. They let us customers do their beta testing and then they charge us again for the next revision of software. In this software, the major complaints are fixed but usually a whole new set of problems is released with the upgrade. In other words, it’s not an upgrade. I have always hated that Microsoft charges us for their errors. But they’re getting away with it because the public is too foolish to simply stop buying their broken products, myself included. On the other hand, I use Linux as a preferred computing platform, but there are too many places where it simply isn’t compatible with the world of MS Windows.

I don’t know why we, as a species, are so stupid. We tolerate this kind of shenanigans and thus the disease spreads. Many companies now use the buying public as guinea pig and apparently WowWee has now joined the club. their latest two robots, Rovio and Mr. Personality are fraught with more user frustration and issues than any preceding product. They respond to the desires of the bean counters over the ideas and ideals of the designers and engineers who have to battle to get a product to market that even approaches what they wanted to build.

Whether its robots, widgets, health care or something else, money is more important than integrity, honesty, and a quest for excellence. As a result the things we find in all market places are marred by failures large and small. And always, people pay the price again and again for this avarice. It’s all about viability in the marketplace -whether a company, organization or individual can do something and make a profit, no matter who gets hurt.

The future holds tremendous promise for all of us. But that promise turns badly false as the developments in technology are hampered by simple greed. We see it everywhere, in everything. We are no longer people, we are promotional targets. Perhaps it’s a good thing that my cancer will kill me. While I have a great curiosity about the future and what we can accomplish, at the same time I firmly believe that the future will amount to no more than a higher level of human exploitation. Like cannibals, we eat one another in an attempt to be comfortable. Going on unaware that the actions we take today will have a grim price later.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions and now we have defective robots driving us there.