Predictions for the future

[dc2]

I saw a guy on TV the other night talking about how much robots will become more common place around the home and it made me think I wonder if will have one doing our photos for us eventually I guess if it was built like robocop it might be steadier than a tripod but think it might take the fun out of photography for the photographer, after the initial novelty wore off .
Just a thought [maybe scarey one]

[Narsuitus]

I don’t think we have to predict the future. With the number of unmanned security cameras capturing images for us and of us, I think we already have what you describe.

By the way, can we predict the past?

[mikej]

They have been predicting how robots were going to do most of our work as far back as the 50's. If they keep predicting it, I'm sure one of these days it will come true.

And if you think of robots taking wedding pictures... eitehr the church will have one for the bride and groom to use or the bride and groom will be able to rent one. Or the house hold cleaning 'bot will be able to go to the wedding and take pictures and clean up after the reception.

Mike

[dc2]

Be funny if it tries drinking our beer for us

[scoundrel1728]

Perhaps robots for positioning and aiming the lighting instead. I don't think we would want robots to shoot the pictures for us, except in cases where we already use remote control.

A wearable no-hands camera, something like a miner's headlamp that can shoot pictures, is within today's technology. The viewfinder can be a semiconductor laser that traces the edges of the field of view in red. Not clear how best to set such a camera or to read its settings or command it to shoot. Perhaps the laser can write the settings just outside the field of view where the photographer can read them but where they won't show up in the picture. Or they can be blanked while the shutter is actually open.

[Sidebyte]

Originally Posted by Narsuitus

I don’t think we have to predict the future. With the number of unmanned security cameras capturing images for us and of us, I think we already have what you describe.

It appears like a marvelous opportunity to invent a silent "Ray Gun" that will melt the offending cameras like match. After they buy a few dozen that gets melted, maybe they'll get the message.

[dvdowns]

I was sent an article from 1954 popular mechanics predicting a home computer for 2004 . It took up half the room but they said technology would have to make GREAT advances for that to happen . What would be good is an extra camera that sits at the same level as yours , about 90 degrees from where you are standing [ relative to the subject ] , focusing on the same object as you [ bride and groom ] that also takes a picture every time you push the button . It would be like cameo pictures as well as posed wedding pictures at the same time .

[Paul Shields]

I remember the Popular Mechanics home computer - it's one of the classic urban myths of the Internet age. Here's a link showing it in action - I love the huge steering wheel, much more practical than the tiny wheel on my mouse .

Popular Mechanics 'home computer'

[scoundrel1728]

And so it goes with predictions of the future. Computers evolved in an entirely different direction than what was expected in the 1950s, becoming smaller and more ubiquitous, but mobile robots didn't take off quite like that. About the closest thing we have to autonomous robots for household use are the floor cleaners that are just now coming out. The other robots such as those used in search and rescue missions and on the Moon and Mars still have to be guided by humans. And, despite widespread predictions of a robot's or a computer's taking over the world, e.g., Colossus by D.F. Jones, later made into a movie called The Forbin Project, it hasn't even come close to happening.

[mikej]

Robotics is doing very well in our world. They are used in most industries... from auto making to medical research to many others. There is a big demand for people with robotics training of various kinds. The robots that put together most of what we use on a daily basis may not look like the robots as invisioned in the 50's and 60's, but most of our world wouldn't run without them... so in a way, they have taken over.

Mike

[scoundrel1728]

Confusion about terminology here. When I was talking about robots, I was thinking of a self-propelled device that could navigate successfully in an uncontrolled environment. The industrial robots that I have seen don't navigate at all; they are rooted to the spot. They are also effectively roped off from any human contact except special personnel who are well aware of the hazards of being around machinery and are not likely to be clobbered accidentally by the moving appendage of a blind robot unaware of the human's presence.