French startup sees the future, and it includes robots
Imagine having someone to serve you a glass of water whenever you ask,
or even dance if you put on your favourite music. Now imagine that
certain someone is a something -- a robot, in fact.
A French startup named Gostai is doing just that.
The year-old company says it has
developed a simple, easy-to-use robot software that can work with all
operating systems.
And just in time, company officials say, since they expect the
global market for domestic robots to begin booming in the coming years.
"We want to do the same thing Microsoft did with its Windows
software for personal computing," said Jean-Christophe Baillie, founder
of Gostai.
While the idea of having robots handle mundane tasks may seem the
stuff of science fiction to many people, certain countries are already
taking the technology very seriously.
That's the case in Japan, where the aging of the population has
become a concern. South Korea has announced its intention to have
robots in households in 2010.
As a way of creating buzz, Gostai has offered free, downloadable
versions of its software, called Urbi, that allows robots from Danish
toy giant Lego to be programmed. It has also sold the software to 25
universities worldwide for use in robotics research.
"At specialised trade shows, you have 12-year-old kids who, after
10 minutes, tell us, 'Get out the way,' and start programming," said
Baillie.
Baillie recently demonstrated the software with a Sony robot dog,
which he said had been programmed over the course of a weekend. The dog
moved to the rhythm of music from French group Daft Punk.
By way of explaining the technology's simplicity, Baillie said the
code to programme the robot's head to follow a bouncing ball is only
three lines long.
It all sounds intriguing, but there's a big problem standing in Gostai's way: Microsoft.
Gostai considers Microsoft its main competitor in the robot
software business. But the startup, which currently has eight
employees, says it has a strategy.
It has worked to make the software as simple as possible, which it
says gives it an advantange over the Microsoft version. Gostai also
says its product's versatility gives it a boost, since Microsoft's
software is intended to be used with Windows.
The next challenge for the company is to find financing. Convincing
investors won't be easy, and Baillie says they ask about competition
from Microsoft.
"We have to grow very quickly because we have large ambitions: to
have Urbi in all robots," said Baillie, 32. "When a platform emerges,
people are going to begin developing applications and the phenomenon
will take care of itself."
2007 AFP