One day, maybe robots will make amazing cups of coffee. That day is not today.
At Japan Robot Week in...Japan, companies and researchers are showing off their latest "service robots," which include a variety of 'bots that range from nursing robots to disaster relief ones. This is important research.
Then, there's this one—dubbed Nextage—making coffee. Also important but...awkward.
Here is another video from YouTuber Tomomi Ota.
Obviously, this is a tech demo to show off what Nextage can do! Which is, it seems, slowly make a cup of Nespresso. Nextage is an advanced industrial robot that can do many other things besides slow make hot beverages and is certainly more than able to work in a factory environment.
[GIF: Tomomi Ota]
But this isn't a factory. This is coffee!
To those baristas out there, don't worry about being replaced just yet. And everyone else, look forward to when they teach robots how to ask for your name and then screw it up.
[GIF: Tomomi Ota]
NEXTAGE cafe でコーヒーはいかがですか？ [Kawada Robot]
Japan Robot Week 2014_NEXTAGE [Tomomi Ota via IT Media]
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