Sure, it is a advertising gimmick. Positive, it is sort of hokey. However darn it if this does not unexpectedly pull on the heartstrings.
Husqvarna, the maker of autonomous dwelling garden mowers that look one thing like RC tactical assault autos from Mad Max occasions, is releasing an uncommon software program replace to have fun a lonely robotic 1000’s of miles away. In early August, the Curiosity Mars rover will flip 10 years outdated. Following the software program replace, some 100,000 Husqvarna Automowers all over the world will be capable of sing Blissful Birthday to the intrepid explorer.
There’s some backstory right here (and, in fact, a video). The engineers behind Curiosity clearly had some enjoyable. They programmed the superior information assortment robotic to sing Blissful Birthday to itself, which it did on its first birthday in House. However saving batteries took priority on subsequent birthdays and the rover, which continues to be in operation, has not had any birthday magic since.
Rovers have lengthy held a novel house in widespread creativeness, and whereas anthropomorphizing a machine is all the time questionable these Rovers (and the group behind them) are worthy of celebration. My children love a e book referred to as Good Evening Oppy, concerning the Alternative rover, and there are related titles about Curiosity.
“For us, it is a option to pay homage to the nice engineering work of NASA, and that of our in depth group of robotic consultants, by letting our robotic mowers have fun a fellow robotic … no person ought to should sing Blissful Birthday to themselves, proper?” requested Björn Mannefred, Robotics Software program Supervisor at Husqvarna.
Husqvarna has been forward of the pack in working with IoT and exterior third-party options, together with Google Dwelling, Amazon Alexa, and IFTTT. This newest software program replace is on the market on August 5 and has a little bit of Elon Musk aptitude to it. You probably have an Automower, the replace is on the market to fashions 405X, 415X, and 435X AWD and can turn out to be obtainable completely in September for Automower house owners to be used of their future birthday celebrations.