Office robots may become common

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Late one July night, Mountain View, Calif., Fire Captain Verne Chestnut and his crew were checking out a fire alarm at an office building near Highway 237 when he saw movement inside. Worried that someone might be trapped, he took a closer look.

What he saw was not a person but a robot, and it was waiting at the front door, as if to greet them. After the fire crew got inside, the robot, which looks like a Segway scooter with a head instead of handlebars, followed them as they inspected the building. And after they finally succeeded in shutting off the alarm, it spoke to them.

"It was just like, 'You're kidding!'" said Chestnut. "It was definitely different being met by a robot."

Chestnut quickly learned that the voice of the robot belonged to Trevor Blackwell, the CEO of Anybots, the robot-making company whose alarm had sounded. Blackwell, on vacation in Hawaii, was controlling the robot over the Internet. And if he's right, robots like the ones his company makes are about to become commonplace.

Anybots' QB model is just one of a group of new remote-controlled robots now hitting the market. Employing communications technologies similar to Skype and robotic technologies akin to those found in robots used to explore Mars or help defuse bombs in Iraq, the new robots cost far less than their predecessors and are designed for more ordinary uses.

Blackwell, who founded Anybots nine years ago after leaving Yahoo, says the $15,000 QB can inspect warehouses or factories remotely or provide tech support. Security firms are also likely to be interested, said Jackie Fenn, an analyst who covers emerging trends at Gartner, a technology research firm. If security guards see something suspicious on a video camera, they could send in a robot to get a closer view, rather than having to go out and inspect it themselves.

Anybots' competitors include VGO, a New Hampshire-based company that is developing two-wheeled robot similar to QB that has a video screen instead of a "head."

The declining prices for telepresence robots will encourage experimentation among companies and entrepreneurs, who will find new uses for them, say analysts.

"These robots will have a network effect," said Hyoun Park, an analyst at the Aberdeen Group. "The more robots there are, the easier it will be to work remotely in ways we haven't thought about before."

QB and similar robots could eventually be used to let consumers preview houses or hotels from afar, to allow disabled people to virtually visit tourist destinations, or to help fashion experts give consultations to consumers at clothing stores across the country. Already, QB is undergoing testing by NASA and Wolfram Research founder Stephen Wolfram.

For now, Anybots is pitching the QB to companies with remote workers. Blackwell notes that buying a QB can be cheaper than flying remote workers to and from the main office: "A couple trips to Asia can easily cost you more than the cost of the robot, not even counting the waste of time in the air."