#iRobot

[odinsblog]

IN THE FALL OF 2020, GIG WORKERS IN VENEZUELA POSTED A SERIES OF images to online forums where they gathered to talk shop. The photos were mundane, if sometimes intimate, household scenes captured from low angles—including some you really wouldn’t want shared on the Internet.

In one particularly revealing shot, a young woman in a lavender T-shirt sits on the toilet, her shorts pulled down to mid-thigh.

The images were not taken by a person, but by development versions of iRobot’s Roomba J7 series robot vacuum. They were then sent to Scale AI, a startup that contracts workers around the world to label audio, photo, and video data used to train artificial intelligence.

They were the sorts of scenes that internet-connected devices regularly capture and send back to the cloud—though usually with stricter storage and access controls. Yet earlier this year, MIT Technology Review obtained 15 screenshots of these private photos, which had been posted to closed social media groups.

The photos vary in type and in sensitivity. The most intimate image we saw was the series of video stills featuring the young woman on the toilet, her face blocked in the lead image but unobscured in the grainy scroll of shots below. In another image, a boy who appears to be eight or nine years old, and whose face is clearly visible, is sprawled on his stomach across a hallway floor. A triangular flop of hair spills across his forehead as he stares, with apparent amusement, at the object recording him from just below eye level.

iRobot—the world’s largest vendor of robotic vacuums, which Amazon recently acquired for $1.7 billion in a pending deal—confirmed that these images were captured by its Roombas in 2020.

Ultimately, though, this set of images represents something bigger than any one individual company’s actions. They speak to the widespread, and growing, practice of sharing potentially sensitive data to train algorithms, as well as the surprising, globe-spanning journey that a single image can take—in this case, from homes in North America, Europe, and Asia to the servers of Massachusetts-based iRobot, from there to San Francisco–based Scale AI, and finally to Scale’s contracted data workers around the world (including, in this instance, Venezuelan gig workers who posted the images to private groups on Facebook, Discord, and elsewhere).

Together, the images reveal a whole data supply chain—and new points where personal information could leak out—that few consumers are even aware of.

(continue reading)

[tswiftupdatess]

iRobot via Tiktok!

[stevebattle]

TinyVille Dollhouse (2001) by iRobot, Bedford, MA. TinyVille is an interactive dollhouse, inhabited by a virtual family with their own individual personalities (the perfect home for your miniature replica Roomba). The family is represented by sound and lights moving within the house, and they can talk and play games with you. The doors and windows have touch sensors, and the audio comes from specific rooms. It even has a 'tilt' sensor to detect if the house is tipped or shaken. The more you interact with the house, the more you learn about its occupants. The family are initially frightened of you, as to them you manifest as an invisible ghostly presence, but they will eventually come to trust you.

[trexalicious]

I think Alan Tudyk is an underappreciated actor and I'm rather chuffed he is the lead in a series of his own, Resident Alien. It's a great watch and I'm very much looking forward to Season 3 ❤

[dudja]

Moms be like

[dijidweeeb]

Space Vixen

[miasmultifandomdump]

I love me a duo where one hates artificial intelligence but then changes their mind due to the innocence and pure-hearted ways of a new AI friend.

[raurquiz]

#happybirthday @alantudyk #alantudyk #actor #k2so #rogueone #starwars #Transformers #DarkoftheMoon #EarthSpark #Encanto #Disenchanted #StrangeWorld #firefly #irobot #ResidentAlien #DoomPatrol #RayaandtheLastDragon #BigHero6 #WreckItRalph #AKnightsTale #Moana #Zootopia #Oddball

[pearcepeafowl]

meme, and WE ARE SO FUCKING BACK.

happy new year btw

its giving

[kimludcom]

Revolutionizing Home Life: Elon Musk's Optimus and the Future of Household Robots: https://youtube.com/watch?v=41OPiAsqpus Explore the future of home automation with Elon Musk's groundbreaking Optimus! This cutting-edge robot is designed to revolutionize household tasks, making life easier by handling everything from cleaning and cooking to yard work and caring for loved ones. Discover how Optimus adapts to your needs, improves your quality of life, and sparks essential discussions about the impact of robotics on the workforce and society. Join us for insights into this transformative technology and see how it leads the charge into a new era of intelligent home assistance. Don't miss out on the latest trends in robotics—watch now and be part of the future! #ElonMusk #Optimus #Robots #SmartHome #AI #HomeAutomation #FutureTech #Innovation #Robotics #HouseholdRobots #OptimusHouseholdRobots #HomeAutomation #SmartTechnology #ArtificialIntelligence #FutureTechnology #iRobot #AIinDailyLife #ElonMuskhouseholdrobots #Optimusrobotfeatures #futureofhomautomation #howrobotswillchangedailylife #AIrobotsinhomes #besthouseholdrobot2024 #technologyandhouseholdchores #roboticsandcaregiving #automationineverydaytasks

[ryukisgod]

[cosmosinmycoffee]

I think we as a society collectively did not learn enough from the movie iRobot

[stevebattle]

ChemBot "Jamming Skin Polymorph" (2009) by iRobot, Bedford, MA. The shape-shifting ChemBot moves around using “jamming skin enabled locomotion.” Its silicone skin includes twenty bladders, arranged in a regular icosahedron, filled with air and loosely-packed particles. When the air is sucked out, the decrease in pressure constricts the skin, and the remaining particles solidify in place. Under the ChemBot's skin is an incompressible fluid sac and an actuator to vary its volume. A combination of unjamming selected bladders and inflating the interior sac causes its skin to bulge outwards, making it roll around.

"If covert access to denied or hostile space is required during military operations, the effectiveness of unmanned platforms such as mechanical robots can be limited if the only available points of entry are small openings. The goal of the Chemical Robots (ChemBots) program is to create a new class of soft, flexible, meso-scale mobile objects that can identify and maneuver through openings smaller than their dimensions and perform tasks once entry is gained." – Chemical Robots (ChemBots), Dr. Gill Pratt, DARPA, Defence Sciences Office.

[nando161mando]

Those Roombas? Oh, they're just for show.

[roboticsappreciationsociety]

By Evan Ackerman 29 Jan 2024

Citing “no path to regulatory approval in the European Union,” Amazon and iRobot have announced the termination of an acquisition deal first announced in August of 2022 that would have made iRobot a part of Amazon and valued the robotics company at US $1.4 billion.

The European Commission released a statement today that explained some of its concerns, which to be fair, seem like reasonable things to be concerned about:

Our in-depth investigation preliminarily showed that the acquisition of iRobot would have enabled Amazon to foreclose iRobot’s rivals by restricting or degrading access to the Amazon Stores.… We also preliminarily found that Amazon would have had the incentive to foreclose iRobot’s rivals because it would have been economically profitable to do so. All such foreclosure strategies could have restricted competition in the market for robot vacuum cleaners, leading to higher prices, lower quality, and less innovation for consumers.

[creeping-mollusk]

What fandoms are you in?

Heyoo! Here's some stuff I think is neat

The books:

Dune

Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller books

Christopher Paolini, lately I really like Murtagh and his sci-fi books (To Sleep in a Sea of Stars and Fractal Noise) and ofc I read his Inheritance Cycle as a kid a number of times

Asimov's Robot stories and Caves of Steel trilogy (thinking about re-reading Foundation and the sequels)

The shows/movies:

Spy x Family

Over the Garden Wall

Star Trek TNG

All the Studio Ghibli Movies (that I've seen lol)

Doctor Who (haven't seen it all)

Bleach

Samurai Jack and Primal (when I can stomach it, it's beautiful and really cool it can just be.. a lot)

Coraline, Nightmare before Christmas, Corpse Bride

The theatre:

Hadestown

Little Shop of Horrors (the movie too ofc)

Hunchback

The Ninth Hour (also in music bc it's a Shayfer James album it's so gooood)

The games:

Apex

Zelda (still playing BoTW)

Ace Attorney (only played the trilogy so far) (there's also an anime and I love it too hehe)

Undertale/Deltarune

Portal 1 and 2 ofc

Primordia is cool too

Music:

Might not really be a fandom thing but some bands and artists I really like are

I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME (everything is good but specifically really loving Gloom Division rn)

Shayfer James (SHIPWRECK. AAAAH. THE NINTH HOUR [AAAAAAAH]

And Jazz Emu, Robyn Adele Anderson (she does cool covers), Gorillaz, half•alive, uhh classical music in general

And all that yet to be seen

Thanks for asking! I love to ramble about these things (though I usually have a more limited knowledge than more dedicated fans lol)

There's so many things that I want to watch/play but haven't yet, so this list will only expand with time.