Apple’s friendly table lamp robot prototype
What a wild story. While it’s been rumored that Apple researchers have been working on robots, now those researchers have published their results, including a pretty amazing video.
A team of robotics researchers at Apple have designed and prototyped a lamp-like robot with lifelike movements, according to a blog post and accompanying video published last month on the Apple Machine Learning Research website. The lamp, which reminds us of the cute Pixar mascot Luxo Jr., may hint at Apple’s future plans.
If we know anything about Apple is that forthcoming products do not show up in research papers and videos before they’re released. But that doesn’t mean Apple isn’t intending on using this sort of tech in some specific applications down the road.
Gurman’s original report said that Apple “has developed an advanced table-top home device that uses robotics to move a display around, they said.” This sure sounds like it’s related to whatever Gurman’s sources were talking about.
I’m not sure I’d bet on anything like what’s depicted in the video becoming a product anytime soon, but it’s a pretty amazing video nonetheless.