How is it embarrassing? We have had this tech for years, but no one here would make a commercial product with it. A kid could build one of these robots with a raspberry pi, camera, and gps.
Somewhat complicated but I'll make an effort. It's embarrassing because it's a company from a strategic competitor (Russia) deploying commercial "drone" tech that much of the world associates with the US, demonstrating that they have parity. Further, by both deploying it in the US and by focusing on college students, it works as a PR move, calling more attention to it. Finally, it will be difficult for the US to do anything about it, because we always complain when Russia limits US companies *and* our own legal system makes it difficult (see Trump's attempt to ban TikTok). So it's just sort of an embarrassment that we can't really respond to.
Edit: I'll add that it's only really embarrassing because we have been blaming other countries for our own inadequacies, and Russia has been the main punching bag lately. If we could just accept that we are in economic competition and not turn it into a media circus, we wouldn't leave open opportunities for PR stunts like this.
If people could get business loans to make products that don’t have recurring revenue models, robots would be as cheap and plentiful as smartphones. We could have locked this down 10 years ago, but the profit margins weren’t high enough.
What reasons? This isn’t high tech. Children build these kinds of robots all day. US companies refused to build these robots, so what does it matter where they come from? What if they were Chinese, or Japanese, or German?
>oh noes, da ruskies are gonna know what we eat.
All they have to do is watch a sportsball game to figure that out.
I said sounds bad, not is bad. Why won't US build them, lol? We can't make child's robots? Sounds bad.
Maybe they will deliver copy of marxist manifesto (lol it's already in the textbooks)
They could do some wifi hacks for cyberwar
They could release mini assassin drones
They could put dumb juice in your food
>Why won't US build them, lol?
Nothing get financial backing here unless it has a recurring revenue model. No one is going to give you a loan to build these robots unless they come with a subscription. Case in point, motorcycle airbags that won’t work if you don’t pay the monthly fee.
Russia isn’t hindered by bullshit like that, so they can make and sell robots cheap enough that grubhub can afford it. If they were made here, it would be cheaper to just hire someone.
The president of Russia goes to an Orthodox church regularly, openly declares Russia as a Christian nation, and they own their own central bank. You make your own judgement.
13 comments
2 u/Sheeplebane 07 Jul 2021 21:04
2 u/SEELE [OP] 07 Jul 2021 21:13
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