You know how it is: you go down to your secret lair to work on the prototype for your armada of deathbots, and you get paralyzed by the sheer enormity of the project you’ve undertaken. Not only do you need to find the raw materials, you need to design the bodies and weapons systems, build in failsafes so they don’t attack you, and basically write a complete operating system from scratch. That’s a lot of work for a busy tyrant-to-be, and frankly such details distract from the big picture of global domination. Thankfully, there’s a crew of people working to standardize and abstract robot operating systems to reduce the time-to-market for your electronic henchmen.
New Scientist brings us word of Robot OS.
Roboticists have begun to think about what robots have in common and what aspects of their construction can be standardised, hopefully resulting in a basic operating system everyone can use. This would let roboticists focus their attention on taking the technology forward.
My plans for world domination will be greatly enhanced by the commoditization of robots. Hurry up, guys!!