(50X) Autonomously folding a pile of 5 previously-unseen towels

[userwords]

leopard towel is very disgusting. of a very bad taste dudes.

[godthisisannoying]

This is very nice. It's interesting to see the solutions developed by the team, such as twisting the cloth with each pincer in order to identify the cloth configuration and material properties. Very nice job, can't wait for fully automated laundry/dry cleaning businesses to start springing up, which will then inevitably lead to home appliances which will do all of it, including putting the clothes on their respective drawers. And prevent a lot of back injuries for people working those businesses

[anne9660]

I, for one, welcome our new robotic towel folding overlords.

[glund01]

THE FUTURE IS NOW

[503clr]

What is this thing? What is it? What is it? What? What the fuck am I looking at? Wha- OHHHH, IT'S A TOWEL

[DoomfuzzFTW]

my 13 year old douche brother is bragging to me that he can build this with a few simple parts in only a day.

For the life of me, I can't convince him otherwise. :/

[golema4]

@DoomfuzzFTW Can he build it out of scraps - in a cave?

[Josephjoel3]

My goodness are you guys dumb! What is consciousness? None of us are conscious of anything. We are only using memory to remember past actions and carry them out again and again. It is a machine like activity and this is exactly how this machine is also functioning. In this regard how can a robot ever place a 'value" on killing man? unless it is programmed to do so it will NEVER of its own accord do such a thing. Man is a machine that has blood veins and the machine above has wires that's all.

[wjavier316]

@Josephjoel3 the consciusness is what we know as the "I". We represent ourselves in our minds. And a few animals are able to be conscious of their existand like humans, dolphins and some more.

[Josephjoel3]

@wjavier316 I maintain that there is no consciousness. That "I" you refer to has nothing to do with consciousness. That is self consciousness which is a division that exists as a defect in mankind. That "I" is the source of all trouble and misery at the personal and societal level this is unique to and detrimental to man and this is what will result in the destruction of all life on the planet. That "I" is not something natural it comes about as tradition passed on through generations.

[wjavier316]

@Josephjoel3 misery? you have to be kidding xd.

I'm sure that you used to think as an "I" way before...

[Josephjoel3]

@wjavier316 I am not saying I am different from you or anyone else of course the "I" is there in me. I am part of the problem. Everyone undoubtedly has to assume responsibility for their very existence. Do you live a perfect life in total happiness and peace at ALL times? When I use misery I am speaking of this chasing of this undisturbed happiness which is only going to lead to strain and pain.

[SFNightTripper]

@Josephjoel3 "thats all" bwahahaha get your pseudo-intellectual crap out of here nerd

[Josephjoel3]

@SFNightTripper Ahh, and you're the intellectual I see, resorting to petty insults and self stroking superiority, while not saying anything of relevance or significance. There is nothing "pseudo" about anything. Only a willingness to take in certain forms of information over another and then calling all that is excluded pseudo-whatever.

[ChibiGeeBee]

@Josephjoel3 Wouldn't that mean you are conscious of the fact that you aren't conscious?

[Josephjoel3]

@ChibiGeeBee Consciousness is just another word for thought. The answer to your question is yes as consciousnesses is limited to a field. We have a division of consciousness known as self-consciousnesses which is the physical ability of knowing that we know. Our very species name Homo Sapiens reflects this. Therefore we are all conscious of what we know and we are also conscious that our consciousnesses is limited in it's ability to know. "I know one thing, that I know nothing"-Socrates.

[arikatla1122]

what if there isn't any green background?

[Corrosive1]

well..... why the fuck not

[0bb0g]

We had this video shown to us in a robotics lecture today, whole class laughed at how cute it was :D

[barboanais]

I hate robots...

[haaslvr]

This impresses me. Not far from step 7 above.

[Fraze326]

I don't know why but it reminds me of the fridge from Wallace and Gromit

[MixeTube]

soooooooo funny how it picks it up and looks at it first :D :D

[XxMiG71xX]

IT'S ROSEY!!!!!!! :D

[kevkev3ex]

This is so fucking cute.

[nafneeuq7]

As long as the robots never realize that they can get the job done a whole lot faster if they just enslave us and make us do it, we'll be fine.

[andrewbaker77gmail]

@nafneeuq7 hilllllllarious



[Panda2699]

SO COOL!!!

[theuglychickens]

Reminds me of the first Roomba I tested some years ago. I remember thinking, "Man, this thing is sloooow." But then I realised *I* didn't have to vacuum the floor, so it didn't matter how long the Roomba took. I also knew the technology would get better, faster and cheaper, and so it has. The third (fourth?) gen Roombas are better, while I still vacuum at the same speed and I still complain about having to do it.

[careful34]

The first automobile was slower than a horse. The first airplane flight wasn't very impressive. Neither was the first transistor, or computer. Give it a little time, and see where it goes.

[elpresidio]

The robot is a PR2 built by Willow Garage and donated to Berkeley and a number of other universities. Folding laundry is one of the most difficult problems to solve in robotics. The robot takes a long time as it must first locate the corners of the towel but it will try a number of times to get started because the corners it grabs have to be adjacent, not crosswise.

[youmo07]

il tidy my bedroom 4 me

[levicall]

its kind of cute... ha.

[nordicsky]

Looks like world domination might be some time away.

[kenninast]

It's all relative. Speed as well as accuracy, A robot can assemble things way quicker and more accurate than any human. And a computer can count a lot better than any human. So it's not really that black and white.

[careful34]

That actually pretty amazing. Well done. I do worry about what will be left for people to do in 40 or 50 years.

[KushAudio]

@careful34 Fold the laundry of our robot masters, of course.

[fb39ca4]

it does a better job than me...i have no motivation to fold towels

[cybermarsactual]

Finally a robot capable of actually doing something, right on!

[Benimation]

I WANT IT.

[bob2772556]

"Shown at 50x speed"? So, you're telling me this thing takes eleven and a half minutes to fold a towel?

[elevatorgrl]

@bob2772556 I thought it meant that it was fifty times faster than normal speed - i.e. it took the robot about 100 minutes, or an hour and forty two minutes to complete this task.

[elevatorgrl]

@bob2772556 Oh wait, you're right, if you divide it by five towels it is about 11.5 minutes per towel. My bad.

[sAsAk1]

He can fold better than me xD

[Kwicherbichen]

Love that this little invention cost TAXPAYERS 1.5 Million Dollars. Congratulations morons.

[000FoxSnake000]

@Kwicherbichen Don't be negative. This is only a step

[will1977a]

Wow, our tax dollars hard at work...

[CharlineWeisberg]

best movie..worth to watch it in webmovietube

[marcusliddell]

when this robot folds my undies (briefs) does it give them a sniff to check out if i can get more mileage out of them?

[jaymyacee]

Damn you opposable thumbs!!!

[Nitrousx]

50x speed? The robot took about 10 seconds in this video to begin folding the yellow towel...so approximately 8.5 minutes..

not so practical but hey thats what research is for. I wonder how far robot labor will go.

[aleks5005]

haha i was actually laughing out loud. Funny how it messes up then goes back to do it over... and then gently grabs the towel by the corners to fold it lmao

But at 20 minutes per towel, tooo slow

[ereignisfelder]

makes me giggle in excitement.

[Thyself17]

First towels... then humans...

What is this world coming to?!

[nfwu]

Trial and error with results checking using image detection? Ehhh... was expecting something a little more impressive.

[thinktothemax]

I want one

[themasteriswatching]

I can't wait to not fold my laundry

[djdarlek]

Cyderdyne must have had it's budgets cut.

[r38007]

@djdarlek Cyderdyne, man I love their apple cider! :) 

[CyphenPhsyX]

Cute! But whats with the Christmas lights at its bottom? :D

[matt4521623]

I would've already folded a hundred at this speed!!!!

[nyavramov]

Progression of people's mentality on robotics:

1. Okay, it can fold a towel but it's slow.

2. Okay, it can fold a towel fast, but it can't fold other cloths.

3. Okay, it can fold clothes, but it can't do dishes or and drive to the grocery store.

4. Okay, it can get groceries and dishes, but it can't think creatively.

6. Okay, it can think creatively, but it isn't conscious.

7. Okay, it's conscious....

...Well, fuck.

[essencEternel]

@nyavramov if you can't count, you should not be commenting on this.

[jhoags92]

Don't give it a gun... Trust me.

[StuartLittleJr]

the towels are drying while folding process - it's awesome

[wokflop]

(2 minutes * 50) / 5 = 20 minutes per towel. You're fucking fired autonomously folding a pile of 5 previously-unseen towels robot!!!!!

[TourettesSomething]

@wokflop It's the best we can do with robot technology today.

Check back in about a year and a half to two years or so. Or... well, since this was almost a year ago...

Within this year.

PS- Communists beware. Imagine this, but 500x faster. This is the ''working class's'' competition in the future!

United States beware. China and India's as-of-yet unnamed robotic working class (silver class?) in the future will dominate you and make you their slaves.

[trollunion54]

slow, complicated, and annoying. better luck net time amerifats.

[GSaPKilla]

@trollunion54 i think you don't get the point of this thing...

[ajbsb69]

That was not only impressive, but downright adorable! Can I keep him? <3

[Zijn1990]

haha every towel he says

"ooooooo this is niiiiceeee!" *twist wrist*

[eb1zzle]

NICE.

[gravityisweak]

Wonder how much energy was used to fold a towel. But hey, i guess progress always starts slow. What wont robots be doing for us in the future?

[sworteu]

i fell down from my chair from LOOOOOOOOOOOOL

[DGZlol]

i like that

[Konakona940]

A brilliant bit of Robotics here. And to all the people saying what is the point or that it takes a hour and a half is that you have to realise that this robots processing power is much lower then any human and that this is a huge step, with Moores Law hopefully going to continue at the rate it is Robotics could in a few decades but a realist thing for the public.

[TheOriginalEntz]

It says it was sped-up 50 times? Just how slow does this robot work ?

[CanineFaeces]

Surely it's just cheaper and easier to hire an illegal immigrant, to do that sort of thing?

[CreAlienDJ]

... mom? ;(

[foliatedchicken]

SKYNET IS ONE STEP CLOSER!!!!!!  FIRST TOWELS, THEN THE WORLD!!!!!

[lshanermi]

I'll take TWO! He can fold my laundry all day! I don't care if I have to install a green screen for him to to function...as long as I don't have to lift a finger! :-)

[Eugenitor]

So what happens if someone's underwear gets put into the towel pile?

[makofinger7]

かわええ・・・♡

[ibex10011]

What would happen if you snatched the towel from it. Also look at those biceps

[cocomaan]

Nice leopard print hand towel!

[kingkongut99]

Looks fake.

[ZOMGxuan]

Too bad it takes 1 hour and 40 minutes to do all of this.

[f1avalanche]

Аааа!!!! Пылесосик!!!

"пока справа не край, повторять вправо"

:-)

[kasuskasus]

Finally a robot video which impresses me!

[Daghead]

you should have slowed down the good parts.

[Boonchocks]

We want ones that get beers too!

[stupidjunk978]

Gayest robot ever

[democrat10]

This is how I fold my clothes.

[OlivierPovel]

Brilliant. Very well done. Finally some progress in this very difficult field. Compliments.

Is this just a case study or are you now going full force ahead in the development of everyday appliances?

[Johnyhard12]

Awesome, it took 100 minutes to fold 5 towels....

[streips]

I love how it appears that the robot is thinking "OK, now is this a towel? Is this also a towel? Could this also be a towel? Looks more like a washcloth." :)

[poopashardasrock]

who folds towels like that?!

[DisneyProjectTracker]

This really makes you not take your brain for granted seeing how long it takes a robot to do a simple task that takes us mere seconds to do.

[frother]

@DisneyProjectTracker

Still, human brains are vulnerable to mental illness, starvation, physical trauma...

[bonkzilla]

my mistake.. 10 minutes..

[bonkzilla]

5 minutes of thorough analysis later... conclusion: yep.. it's a towel

[JashiFun]

It's cute~

[algoseer]

isn't this much faster?( /watch?v=fZKKrUXjzDY ). what the point of making everything android?

[juujoo200]

@algoseer the technological advancement is "the point" of this. That robot is doing everything by itself. There isn't a human controlling it.

[richyroolahs]

What can I say? That's just incredible! What a massive achievement.

Few people understand the complexity of a task like that, especially for a computer.

[Hentaicore]

Why does it twist! WHY DOES IT TWIST!

[J0EH3AD]

This is amazing! Now where we are, computers can do tasks and it seems that most human tasks doesnt need even thinking!! Eg: playing chess, walking, composing music, proving mathematical theorems, of course computing, learning, playing football, backgammon, computer simulated opponents in games....

[Lilyqueen21]

Very cool!

Can I sign up to have this robot tested in my home?

[GANGLIAGOROTUS]

But can it make a sandwich?

[azusa0228]

Kawaii!

[Oofloom]

Kinda funny that people in the 50s thought we'd have robot maids by now. At this rate it'll take a 1000 years.

[Oofloom]

Often when I'm mowing the lawn I think to myself "It's amazing how far we HAVEN'T come"

[K0Da11]

I respect!

[jnanthak]

wow! amazing!

[EcakCake2]

Heck, it does laundry faster than ME lol

[nemesisnick66]

WELL on to the important question *clears throat* ..can you have sex with it?

[Phoenix73nj]

I want one, but it's got to wash the dishes and dust and "straighten up" he he he

[SergeyKalabin]

This robot is so cute! :) 

[KreeTheBasilisk]

I was literally just thinking about robot intelligence a couple of hours ago before I saw this video, what a coincidence! I had a huge grin on my face while watching this, the way it carefully looks over all the different angles so it can figure out what it's supposed to do is adorable. This is the kind of stuff that us humans take for granted.

[kalibos]

I had a huge grin on my face the entire time I was watching this. I can't wait to see what this century brings!

[DBDP3]

When can I buy one?

[PlanetSierron]

@surtcaldera

Right. Well it can take the whole night to fold my towels as long as it is quiet. Leave the robot alone xD~

[kayman93]

apart from it being quite impressive, it's also terribly funny! xD

[JorgeIvanovich]

Amazing i can have my 4 towels folded in 1 week!!!

Enough of jokes,in 50 years this thing will work on darkness and faster than 100 people.

[obstaclecorse]

@DingofromOz Wow...why so harsh? Are you really that bitter and hostile, or are you just arrogant. Either way I'm guessing that you have a major psychological complex due to your minuscule penis, shrunken testes and the fact that you will never be a mature, rational adult. Granted, all of this is compounded by the fact that you slept with your mother until you were 17.

[pasqualified]

how big is that thing?

[CuervoBlack06]

@pasqualified That's what she said

[FlouncyTrouncy]

This is absolutely awesome. The number of decisions - the texture, the amorphous shapes, one of them even had a pattern printed on it. This ranks right up there with the first robot to walk down stairs. Wow. I'm impressed.

[Stalker22]

It folds towels better than me :<

[TiroTarasin]

@Stalker22 but takes a million times longer XD, at this point a robotic butler is still pretty far :<

[jeffreydcatl]

@TiroTarasin

When memristors are available, they'll be able to fold as fast or faster than a human.

[snedie69er]

@jeffreydcatl

And what's a "Memristor" when it's all there?

[jeffreydcatl]

@snedie69er

I don't understand your question. Wikipedia has a decent entry on memristors, but I would check HP's research online for a more reliable description.

The bottom line is that they'll be faster than our current transistor-based processors, especially considering they combine memory with processing.

[snedie69er]

@jeffreydcatl

yes i took the liberty to inform myself of this technology. I can't see it making it's way past scientific/research/military use for at least 15 years.

[jeffreydcatl]

@snedie69er

Few years. It's similar to flash, so it isn't anything completely alien. HP expects to have a commercial product ready within the next year or so, but i'll be pessimistic and say it'll happen in three.

[jeffreydcatl]

@TiroTarasin

Computing power doubles about every year or year and a half. It's not as far off as you think.

[TENJHOTENGE1]

i'm amazed!technology is rapidly developing faster. i wonder when that will be available in the market? :)

[CYFilmStudent]

Very useful

[IRRULE]

the matrix is about to be real

[IRRULE]

hey this is like wall-e but instead of crushing garbage it's folding towels!

[GuacamoleKun]

LMAO new pile for the small towels. XDDD I don't know why that's so funny.

Maybe he just started a new pile because the other one was too big though.

[DannyWeinkauf]

that took him only 4 hours ... yeah!

[Dirtfire]

@DannyWeinkauf it was 1hr 40min, not 4 hours

[furvert101]

@DannyWeinkauf actually 1.6 hours.

[DannyWeinkauf]

@furvert101 Okay that is very very fast.