Finally, A Robot To Help Us Be Lazy – With A Catch

Hate washing dishes? This could soon be a thing of the past.

Do you hate washing dishes? Of course you do, unless you are some kind of cleaning masochist.  Hopefully your kitchen has never looked as bad as the picture on the left, and even if you own a dishwasher, the daily chore of loading and unloading dishes can be very annoying.  Luckily the folks at Panasonic are developing a robot that is able to do the dishes for us.  The robot consists of an arm that is able to grab and move dishware without breaking anything, plus a camera to observe the arm and make sure it doesn't become confused.  Before putting the dish into a dishwasher, the arm will first empty any remaining contents into a sink.  The robotic arm is also capable of simple serving techniques, such as scooping food out of a serving dish and placing it in a bowl.

As with any robot, there is a dark side to go along with all of the potential benefits.  In the case of Panasonic's robotics division, they are reluctant to make a strong push into consumer robotics due to the fact that there are no safety standards or liability laws concerning robots that interact with humans.  Panasonic is projecting sales of $1.1 billion of home use robots by 2015, so it is surprising that they are hesitant when such a large amount of sales and money could be on the horizon.  The video below states this same fact, and also gives a short explanation of the robot, as well as a few other robots that Panasonic is developing for consumer and commercial use.