Monday, December 3, 2007

Robo-Shop (1989)

The December 11, 1989 Post Standard (Syracuse, NY) ran this piece about Jean Du Teau and his newly opened robotics store, Robot World. Du Teau appears immensely optimistic about the future of personal robots. "Robots are today where computers were 10 years ago," he said. "Most people perceive that the robotic age is going to happen in the year 2000. The robotic age is here." The full article appears below.


See also:
In a Cashless Future, Robots Will Cook (1996)
The Future of Personal Robots (1986)
Japanese Retail Robots (1986)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

He wasn't that far off. Roombas were first sold in 2002, and Wikipedia says over 2 million had sold by May 2006. There are all kinds of toy robots as well, including kits like Lego Mindstorms, that let people build their own robots. That's been around since 1998.

Anonymous said...

As they say, people overestimate technology in the short term, but they underestimate it in the long term. Maybe robots will be more common in 10 to 20 years.

Anonymous said...

I'd love to find out the fate of this store. Maybe Mr. Du Treau will stumble onto this page and enlighten us?