M9. wrote:

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G T Smith schreef:

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Billie Walsh wrote:

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Taken to another extreme. You put down your coffee cup and the "surface" recognizes the need and heats the surface where the cup is sitting. Take off you coffee cup and put down a glass of iced tea and it now cools that spot.

Right that would be OK for coffee, but not so much use if you put your beer down (unless you are drinking gluh bier ...).. :-)

If the beer is cold, the table would cool...

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On a more serious note, the kind of AI to this kind of thing is still a a very long way away, and we are not talking a few years, more like a few decades.....

a) To do this you need good pattern recognition. Neural net based applications a still more than a bit limited in accuracy, reliability and range of usage. Finger scanning yes, facial recognition not yet by a long way.

b) The cognitive A.I. to deal with the semantics, intent, and action interpretation of human activity does not exist outside the lab.

Helas, but i think i could live with an electronic servant very well.. ;-)

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I'm sure such things are still a few years in the future but............

It's a ridiculously stupid idea to think that this sort of thing will be in a coffee-table in every one's home

Not only in a coffeetable, imagine your bartenderbot would make you a marvelous glas of beer, with the right temperature, the moment it notices you are in need of one..:-)) and puts a glass of tequila next to it....

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While I would not call it stupid, I think something like holographic keyboards and displays are likely to be more cost effective (and you would not need a special table).... This kind of stuff is not new or original ....

Yes, i agree, it would be much cheaper to have a virtual helmet, and a pair of gloves... You would only need those, and a hole to plug it in.... This would reduce an enormous amount of furniture, and the vacuumclean-bot, would work shorter, and much more easy.. The room we live in could be much smaller than also: a very comfortable chair to live in would be enough.. ;-)

I think you should find the Mad Magazine archives [available on CD... Windows only :-( ] and read the very first issue. This is when the magazine was titled "Tales Calculated to Drive you Mad" -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org