Digital Life: The robots are coming

23 April 2014 - 09:23 By Pearl Boshomane
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British inventor James Dyson tells Pearl Boshomane how he aime to transform households by an invasion of robots

Being an inventor in an age when everything has already been invented can't be easy. But more than 30 years after creating the world's first bagless vacuum cleaner, Sir James Dyson has not lost his passion for thinking up new and often out-of-the-box ideas.

The English billionaire and founder of Dyson recently detailed a radical new concept in Time magazine's Ideas Issue: the MV Recyclone - a giant vacuum cleaner that sucks plastic debris and other pollutants from rivers.

When he's not trying to save the planet, Dyson spends his time reinventing and improving household technology: It's only natural, considering he studied interior design at the Royal College of Art in London (of which he is a provost).

About his time at art school, Dyson said: ''I wasn't interested in fashionable pillows and plush curtains. Rather it was about using emerging materials and applying engineering principles to create new structures, machines and devices."

This would explain why his company spends £3-million (R53.3-million) per week on research design and development, something he says all technology companies should be doing.

''We want our machines to be the best they can be [but] not all companies have the same approach. That's when gimmicks and imitations come to light. It's an easy route to market. If a company doesn't increase its investment in research and development, it will be in big trouble.

''Technology is moving quickly, but some companies are more inventive than others. One of the big benefits of being a private company is that there aren't brigades of shareholders to please. We make decisions rooted in engineering, rather than sticking to what we know to please risk-averse shareholders. As a result we're working on a pipeline of technology that stretches 25 years into the future. There will be plenty of failures along the way, but that's all part of the process."

We know where household technology is now, but what will it be like in 20 years' time?

''The homes of the future will be about using intelligent design and engineering to optimise the space and resources around us. Doing more with less. Advances in material science - materials like Graphene and Carbon 60 - will bring great leaps in domestic technologies."

He said we should be taking cues from the Japanese.

''They demand the best and expect compact technology: smaller machines with no compromise in performance."

Those who are scared robots will take over (as they do in futuristic movies, often with disastrous consequences) will not be pleased about the direction in which household technology is headed. The Japanese have been punting domestic robots for several years, and Dyson has been developing robotics for the past 15 years. But it might be a while before androids are vacuuming our carpets.

"Robots still lack understanding of their environment - which presents a difficult problem when confronted with the complicated task of quickly and efficiently cleaning a room and other domestic tasks. We have just embarked on a joint robotics lab with Imperial College London developing vision systems, leading to new robotic capabilities."

Until then, we'll do the vacuuming ourselves, with the help of some advanced technology.

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