Check out this little robot from The Corpora named Qbo, controlled by Android it hears and sees everything and will in return send back all the information to you. Head to the office without leaving your home, attend a meeting while sitting at a coffee shop or laying by the pool. All this is possible with this unique product currently being developed by the robot company The Corpora. We have a neat video demonstration and more after the break.
Using Android to both control and interact with the Qbo robot the user is able to have full control of the robot. From what eye he sees out of, even 3D mode, how much he hears, where Qbo looks and they can even drive him into another room. Using Android (Nexus One in video) and the onboard microphone on our smartphones the user is able to interact and actually reply to what Qbo hears, it’s like you are right there in the room — only you aren’t. Its video calling a few steps up.
Qbo Robot Telepresence System demo
The audio connection uses the SIP protocol (Session Initiative Protocol) so each Qbo robot has its own independent connection to the caller (controller) and basically the Qbo robot acts as a server, sending and receiving information and data using the JSON format. While that all might be a little too technical for some basically what we have here is a fully functioning and controllable robot ran by an Android smartphone that can both send and receive audio, and will also display whatever he is looking at right on the viewers device. I could go into the technical details a bit more but the video demonstration above shows everything with some detail for a better idea of what we are dealing with.
Although the implementation isn’t fully there yet, this project is an awesome one and we’ve seen the Qbo robot do all sorts of fancy things in the past and can even be a music player connecting to your home network and controlled via visual commands and more. The opportunities once fully developed are endless for something of this nature. All of this and more can be found over at The Corpora Blog.
I want one, what about you guys?
