Bengaluru, May 30: E-commerce giant Amazon on Monday announced it will open a new consumer robotics Software development centre here that will build solutions for the world. The India centre will help support Amazon's international Robotics division, which launched its first robot Astro last year. "Last year we unveiled our first consumer robot, but it certainly will not be our last.This new consumer robotics Software development centre will help support our growing consumer robotics division and attract top talent to work on world-class technology products," said Ken Washington, Vice President, Consumer Robotics, Amazon. Astro is designed to help customers with a range of tasks like home monitoring and keeping in touch with family. It brings together new advancements in artificial intelligence, computer vision, sensor technology, and voice and edge computing in a package that's designed to be helpful and convenient. "India is an innovation hub and having the centre here will help Amazon create better consumer robotics experiences for customers worldwide," Washington added.

Every morning, I am stirred awake by one of the dumbest creatures in existence: a once-abandoned, now adopted 3-year-old orange tabby cat named Cheddar. In exchange for this wake up service, Cheddar gets free meals, pricy vet trips, and plenty of scritches, as do tens of millions of other pets in the U.S. alone. The more cynical among us might say that pets are little more than expensive and far too loud roommates. Not only do you have to regularly pay attention to and feed these roomies, but oftentimes you'll need to fork over lots of money to keep them alive, particularly for breeds predisposed to health problems. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that for decades, some segment of the population has hoped that these furballs could one day be replaced by mechanical facsimiles with less upkeep and cost but all the benefits of domestic companionship--a robotic pet, in so many words.

Recently, I was walking in a little park in downtown Mountain View, right in the heart of Silicon Valley, when I saw something unexpected. They were little robots, well little "automated carts", really, with a flag on top and there were a few of them lined up near the library. Every now and then, one of them would leave the line and navigate the sidewalks and crosswalks of downtown. Being in what is essentially ground zero of Silicon Valley, I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised. When I moved to Mountain View in 2007, I remember being surprised at seeing Google's fleet of autonomous cars driving around (now called Waymo). This was a precursor to the boom in self-driving car companies that happened over the past decade, and which has yet not quite borne fruit.

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is getting back into robotics after a first attempt several years ago fizzled. But this time the company wants to create robots with minds of their own. The company's R&D lab, known as X, announced the Everyday Robot Project on Thursday, describing its efforts to build a new breed of robots infused with artificial intelligence. The goal is a robot that can be "taught" how do to something, rather than needing to be programmed by humans ahead of time to perform a chore. "It's possible for robots to learn how to perform new tasks in the real world just through practice, rather than having engineers'hand code' every new task, exception, or improvement," Hans Peter Brondmo, Alphabet X's "Chief Robot Whisperer", wrote in a blog post announcing the news Thursday.

It wasn't so long ago that consumer robots were destined to be the next big thing. But, that optimism hasn't translated into consumer sales. The result: Jibo was sold for parts. It was one of the first social robots. The founder, MIT roboticist Cynthia Brezeal, was a favorite of tech media.

When I was a kid, I was certain that by the time I was a grown woman, I'd have a friendly little robot friend. Adulthood was in the FUTURE, and the FUTURE had robots like R2-D2, Threepio, Data, and so on. Alas, I am a tax-paying adult with a full-time job, and no, I do not have an adorable mechanical friend that comically beep-boops its disapproval when I get up to my hijinks and shenanigans. But around this time last year, I had an inkling of hope that this future was at least on the horizon. Mayfield Robotics's Kuri Robot was lovable, functional, and buzzworthy with its cute mannerisms and deft behavioral touches. Like, it'd wiggle and waggle as it maneuvered around a room.

At 4ft-nothing, with orb-like eyes, SoftBank's humanoid robot, Pepper, is designed to look friendly. But imagine if Pepper -- a powerful machine crammed with cameras, sensors and motors -- hurtled towards you at top speed? Or stood in your home, secretly recording your life? In 2017, Lucas Apa and Cesar Cerrudo, security researchers with the consultancy IOActive, showed that the version 2.5.5 of Pepper could be hacked through its software because of vulnerabilities that were discovered when it was connected to a network. They demonstrated that the robot could be controlled remotely, its limbs manipulated and its cameras used to spy on users. Yet more than a year later, SoftBank has not patched the software, according to an analysis of its change logs by Mr Apa.

You might not have heard of Kuka, but you'll almost certainly know its products. The German firm is one of the world's top manufacturers of industrial robots, and its robot arms are instantly recognizable thanks to their signature orange livery. But in the future, Kuka's robots might become an even more familiar sight, with the company saying it's now exploring the world of consumer robotics.

I think that is the main reason for getting acknowledgement from the jury.

The other day, I was in one of my student's homes. Noticing the lack of dust--really, the house is always clean--I joked to her, "Is it you or your parents vacuuming these floors so well?" She told me that they actually have a central vacuum system installed in the house. As someone who lives in a rather modest townhouse, she might as well have been speaking Latvian. Thus, as I usually do, I began the rabbit hole internet search about central vacuum systems.