Sure, it is a advertising gimmick. Certain, it is form of hokey. However darn it if this does not unexpectedly pull on the heartstrings.
Husqvarna, the maker of autonomous house garden mowers that look one thing like RC tactical assault automobiles from Mad Max occasions, is releasing an uncommon software program replace to have fun a lonely robotic hundreds of miles away. In early August, the Curiosity Mars rover will flip 10 years previous. Following the software program replace, some 100,000 Husqvarna Automowers around the globe will be capable to sing Blissful Birthday to the intrepid explorer.
There’s some backstory right here (and, in fact, a video). The engineers behind Curiosity clearly had some enjoyable. They programmed the superior knowledge assortment robotic to sing Blissful Birthday to itself, which it did on its first birthday in Area. However saving batteries took priority on subsequent birthdays and the rover, which remains to be in operation, has not had any birthday magic since.
Rovers have lengthy held a novel house in standard creativeness, and whereas anthropomorphizing a machine is at all times questionable these Rovers (and the group behind them) are worthy of celebration. My youngsters love a ebook referred to as Good Evening Oppy, in regards to the Alternative rover, and there are related titles about Curiosity.
“For us, this can be a strategy to pay homage to the good engineering work of NASA, and that of our intensive group of robotic specialists, by letting our robotic mowers have fun a fellow robotic … no person ought to must sing Blissful Birthday to themselves, proper?” requested Björn Mannefred, Robotics Software program Supervisor at Husqvarna.
Husqvarna has been forward of the pack in working with IoT and exterior third-party options, together with Google Dwelling, Amazon Alexa, and IFTTT. This newest software program replace is offered on August 5 and has a little bit of Elon Musk aptitude to it. You probably have an Automower, the replace is offered to fashions 405X, 415X, and 435X AWD and can develop into obtainable completely in September for Automower house owners to be used of their future birthday celebrations.
