Watch: 'Skynet'-Like Robot Dog Patrols Singapore's Parks To Ensure Humans Are Social Distancing
Tyler Durden
If there's one thing we try to keep a eye on, it's the potential use of this global pandemic for governments to try and unleash new and "interesting" ways of surveillance.
Thus, our eyes and ears perked up when we learned that Singapore was now going to be using robot dogs to patrol public areas and make sure that citizens are keeping their distance from one another. Municipal authorities are using Spot, a four legged robot dog made by Boston Dynamics, to remind visitors to parks to keep a safe distance from one another.
The robo-doggo officially started patrol at Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park on Friday as part of a two week trial, according to The Verge. Spot is fitted with cameras that are used to estimate the number of visitors in the park, but Singapore says it won't collect personal data or use the video to identify individuals. Sure.
Spot also comes equipped with a remote control, built-in sensors and will be accompanied by a guide. If the trial is deemed a success, Spot (and likely others like him) could become mainstays in the country's public parks. The robot “lowers the risk of exposure to the virus,” the National Parks Board said, using the virus to shoehorn its agenda forward. Signs like the one above warn park visitors not to disrupt robot at work.
China and the U.S. have similarly experimented with drones to remind people to social distance. "Please maintain a safe distance between you and other people," one robot from Knightscope tells people.
Spot is also undergoing trials in hospitals to help with coronavirus treatments and delivery robots are helping shipping and logistics companies. As The Verge notes, patrolling the parks and reminding people to social distance "may only be the beginning" for these robots. The pandemic is being called a "new opportunity" for robotmakers to deploy their creations.
A Chinese startup that develops augmented-reality glasses for everyday use, or for other applications such as in manufacturing and gaming, has tweaked one of its products with a thermal sensor to create pandemic glasses. Such glasses can detect possible COVID-19 carriers by scanning body temperatures.
The pandemic glasses are called T1 glasses and are developed by Hangzhou-based startup Rokid. The glasses help the wearer screen for symptoms that are common among late-stage COVID-19 carriers such as high body temperatures, reported Reuters.
Rokid Vice President Xiang Wenjie said demand has surged for the augmented-reality glasses with 1,000 pairs purchased by governments, industrial parks, and schools.
"Apart from fixed temperature measurement, T1 can provide portable, distant, and prompt temperature checking, which would be a great help," Xiang said.
The glasses have an infrared sensor and a camera that allow the wearer to "see" peoples' temperatures. Upgraded versions are coming, will enable the wearer to take multiple readings at once in public areas.
The evolution of scanning people with handheld or fixed thermal cameras will eventually transition to pandemic glasses, this is already happening at one corporate center in Hangzhou.
"With more new products coming out, especially these glasses, we think we can use them to conduct contactless temperature measurement, they are very efficient when faced with a big crowd of people," said Jin Keli, president of Greentown Property Management.
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