For years humans have been writing or predicting the future, whether it be a prediction on the weather via some old soothsayer or a Douglas C Clarke novel about monoliths on Mars, sometimes, they seem to come true. Many of us have read books or seen films such as Star Wars that include small robots following people around all the time. That time may well be upon us…
If you are wondering the shape of things to come, this could be it. It seems that the first useful consumer robot will be circular; well, its a robot wheel. Yes we have been here before, we know, only this time it’s also a backpack!
From the creators of the iconic Vespa comes the Piaggio Gita. The Piaggio Group founded PFF (Piaggio Fast Forward) in 2015 in order to create lightweight, intelligent and autonomous mobility solutions for people and their goods. They have certainly hit the ground running though which makes sense as their company motto is “autonomy for humans”. PFF explain that this means autonomy in the service of humans as well as greater freedom, pleasure, and efficiency in movement.
‘Gita is a 26 inch tall light vehicle that can carry up to 40 lbs.; its name means ‘short journey’ in Italian. Gita is able either to navigate high-density urban spaces while following people or to move autonomously along pathways that it has already traveled. It’s an everyday assistant designed to help people walk, run, pedal and skate their way more freely and productively through life.’
So, if VR was the buzz for 2016 could robot assistants be the thing of 2017? The year ahead is certainly going to be an interesting one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_F0e39RtUQ