CA – The company Knightscope is shooting to have the K5 fully deployed by 2015 on a machine-as-a-service business model, meaning clients would pay by the hour for a monthly bill, based on 40-hour weeks, of $1,000. The hourly rate of $6.25 means the cost of the K5 would be competitive with the wages of many a low-wage human security guard.
There are about 1.3 million private security guards in the United States, and they are low-paid for the most part, averaging about $23,000 a year, according to the Service Employees International Union. Most are not unionized, so they’re vulnerable to low-cost automation alternatives.
The K5 will be equipped with facial recognition and even the ability to sniff out emanations from chemical and biological weapons, as well as airborne pathogens. It will be able to travel up to 18 mph, and later models will include the ability to maneuver curbs and other terrain.
“It can see, hear, feel, and smell and it will roam around autonomously 24/7,” said CEO William Santana Li, a former Ford Motor executive.
Security bots are one of the healthier subsets of the robotics industry. iRobot, maker of the popular Roomba vacuum bot, supplies both consumer and military-grade bots that perform a multitude of functions from cleaning floors, pools, and gutters to aiding bomb squads. And a number of smaller companies and research university projects have cooked up everything from consumer robots for personal property to helicopter drones for surveillance purposes.
Where the robotics industry has been lacking is in providing public spaces and large businesses with an all-purpose and highly capable bot that anyone in need of security and surveillance can employ, with military-grade guts that detect deviations from everyday activity.
“Our plan is to be able to cut crime by 50 percent in an area. When we do that, every mayor across this planet is going to be giving us a call,” Li said confidently.
The K5 is being designed with the Sandy Hook Promise (Profit) in mind. It hopes to have its bot one day patrolling schools because “you are never going to have an armed officer in every school,” Li said.
http://knightscope.com/tag/schools/
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/robot-vigilantes-replace-cops-3-80-hour-1429476
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/science/coming-soon-a-night-watchman-with-wheels.html?_r=0
Knightscope K5 or ‘Dalek’ you be the judge:
‘DALEKS’ from Doctor Who:
http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2013/12/daleks-coming-to-school-near-you-may.html
Yes, please stop the freakin’ madness!
Agreed. Pull the plug now before it’s too late.
Hey, isn’t that R2D2? Luke Skywalkers friend? What next? Darth Vader for the principle?
So having one of these in a school would preclude having *anyone* armed to actually protect the children… That’s idiotic. What good is calling the police when you have an “active shooter” situation? They will arrive just in time to chalk line the bodies. Does the cute little robot have a subroutine for allowing legally armed people in it’s vicinity? I’ll bet they neglected that little detail. Oh and please! the kids are going to mess with this thing big time – will it result in a huge spike in false alarms as the little bot calls the police over and over every time someone tries to mess with it?
As usual, liberal tech fantasy doesn’t match reality – but they will try to make reality match their fantasy and that is the scary part
EX-TERMIN-ATE EX-TERMIN-ATE!
STUPIDITY personified.
All your base are belong to us….or is typing that copyright infringement?