Amazon Brings Robots Into Your Home

Your digital media catch-up is right here.

Every Tuesday – for just a few minutes – I join Heather Backman (my old buddy from her days on CHOM FM) on the air at Jack 103 (Rogers Sports & Media) to give a quick blast about the current state of technology, media and Internet culture. We’re calling the segment Tech Tuesday (and we do it in just a few minutes).

What is Tech Tuesday?

If you ever find yourself wondering… What, exactly, is the point of TikTok? How can I make myself look better on a Zoom? Reddit? What’s that about? How do I help my kids be safer online? Who’s the latest creator and streamer that I should be checking out?

You are not alone.

This is what Heather Backman and I discussed this morning over on Jack 103 FM for a couple of minutes:

Say Hello To Astro, Alexa On Wheels – The Verge.

Well, Amazon is at it again. They just announced the launch of a home robot… Astro. Well… is this the cutest thing in the world and the next step (beyond the Roomba) to have roaming robots in our home, or is this a privacy/Big Brother nightmare? 

“The Astro, which will initially cost $999.99 and available as a Day 1 Edition product that you can request an invite for the privilege of buying, is Amazon’s most ambitious in-home product yet. Amazon sees it as bringing together many different parts of the company — robotics, AI, home monitoring, cloud services — all into one device. Best described as the love child between a Roomba and an Echo Show smart display, the Astro is meant to be the next step in what Amazons believes to be the seemingly inevitable home robot. Amazon claims the Astro can do a wide variety of things you might want from a home robot. It can map out your floor plan and obey commands to go to a specific room. It can recognize faces and deliver items to a specific person. It can play music and show you the weather and answer questions like any Echo smart display. It can be used for video calls, always keeping you in frame by literally following your movements. It can roam around your house when you aren’t home, making sure everything is okay. It can raise its periscope camera to show you whether you’ve turned the stove off. It can use third-party accessories to record data like blood pressure.”

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords. Do you?

App of the week: Booky Call – dating sucks… So date a book?

Once the segment goes live on Jack 103, I will post it here for you to listen in, learn, share and engage….

https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1136664481

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