Right in the middle of the year 2015, life isn't everything "The Jetsons" said it would be back in the 60s, as world users are still driving regular cars that don't fly around the city; however, the latest invention from Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers, the robot bartender 2015, might be bringing the world one step closer to what we've imagined the "future" would be.
Scientists from the university's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (CSAIL) presented the new robot bartender 2015 during a recent conference in robotics, as in fact it's a team of three robots that work jointly to deliver items to different scenarios, one of which includes bartending.
According to Vice, the robot bartender 2015 is also programmed to work in disaster situations and hospitals, but of course, it's the bartending functionality making headlines all over the world, as it's part of its features to work in "unpredictable environments."
The MIT team tested the robot bartender 2015 by turning their university's lab into a bar where one of the robots (a PR2 one) was "hired" as a bartender while joined by two other ones (Turtlebos) that played waiters; the latter took different orders from various offices around while the PR2 robots collected the cans of beer or whatever people had ordered.
Popular Science reports that MIT's robot bartender 2015 isn't the first of its kind, but its focus has definitely shifted from regular bartending robots, as those are usually focused on preparing more complex drinks such as cocktail parties; however, this MIT team is more of a low-key deliveryman when it comes to orders.
According to Beta Boston, well beyond the bartending functions, MIT scientists are currently working on search-and-rescue operations, where they want flying drones to be able to scout disaster zones looking for survivors, then sending messages to land robots to come find them.
In any case, for now, the robot bartender 2015 sounds like the team to have around during a lazy afternoon!
