A robot curled up in a bubble

2015 International Consumer Electronics Exhibition, a beautiful robot from the Japanese Toshiba company to stunning the whole scene, lifelike form combined with sophisticated human-computer interaction function, not only at the show to rob the limelight of all kinds of mediocre mobile phones, but also with the influence of CES, once again let the world-wide robot practitioners imagination, The huge cake smells more and more fragrant, and it floats to the mainland of the other side of the ocean.

Now, China's robot industry is very hot, has been fire to no longer fire, in the past 2014 years by the industry known as the "First year of Robotics", a dazzling array of enterprises in different ways to dabble in the field of robotics. According to incomplete statistics, as of the end of 2014, there are more than 70 listed companies or investment in robotics, intelligent automation projects, the overall market number of enterprises reached 4,000, the situation almost out of control. But China's emerging industries have never been more than a science-and-technology discussion, always accompanied by quarrels, subsidies and bubbles, as if the Chinese could not establish a stable order without drooling and shuffling.

In addition, the State attaches great importance to the robot industry layout, subsidies are very tempting, probably about 30% of total investment, which also increased the speed of capital into the field to some extent, and even caused the situation of looting subsidies, crazy degree reminiscent of "a group of beggars looting porridge shop and wo tou" scene.

How is a robotic bubble made?

There is no doubt that robot applications have a very good situation, even the famous future company Google has often quietly bought some small robotics companies, and his partner Foxconn has been trying to introduce a large number of robots on the assembly line, in addition, household, service-class robots have come into the people's eyes, These all give the investor to outline a pair of beautiful picture.

The direction of development and market potential evaluation is no problem, but the problem lies in the impetuous mentality of Chinese robot practitioners. Clearly, the robot is a comprehensive, diversified platform, even if the robot can be done with the natural person has a 95% similarity, but also completed One-third of the task, the greater challenge from the relevant technology. In fact, robots to replace the manual completion of adaptive operations, requires a large number of data operations and command analysis, and sensors, measurement and other technologies need to be coordinated development will be possible to achieve, but the problem is a lot of operating methods, such as the iPhone6 of soft Line assembly, to the current level is unable to complete mathematical modeling, Even the simple welding, but also the classification of welding, arc welding, each of the processing parts have their own characteristics, these technical developments require the long-term precipitation of basic disciplines.

It is also because of the bottleneck of supporting technology, the robot made in China is more like a toy, the area that can be fully applied may only "coax the child". In addition, the nature of Chinese robot foam is also reflected in the lack of core technology, like smartphones, in fact, this is the biggest drawback in China's technology sector.

In fact, in a robot product, the most critical parts should be servo system and reducer, these two things occupy more than half of the cost of the entire robot, but the relevant technology is mostly in foreign enterprises, the most abnormal is that the Japanese two enterprises to monopolize the global reducer 75% of the market share, This is why Japan is the most developed robot country, and now only they can create beautiful robot for people to entertain: last June, soft silver son showed the robot pepper, the biggest bright spot is to provide intimate family services to the lack of caring people, strong technical support to make soft silver ambitious, He vowed to let the robot have feelings and hearts; son's idea is a bit wild, perhaps even Chinese media can speak the same words, the only difference is that SoftBank will engage in long-term research and development, and constantly let the dream close to reality, not to mention, the Japanese industrial robots have made quite good results: as early as iPhone4, On Earth only Japan hair that family of robots can meet the production specifications of Apple, so, Gou took a breath to buy 1000 of such robots, each price is 200,000 dollars, that is to say, iPhone4 can sweep the world absolutely to the Japanese to remember a work.

Anti-Chinese robot enterprises, although every year to maintain a high-speed growth, but no one can match the soft silver or hair that branch, as to say, large-scale commercial is more distant, more frightening place is, the robot market overall impetuous mentality, very easy to make technical staff into business personnel, or become a state-subsidized parasite, leading to a widening gap in technology, the most tragic situation, like today's smartphones, where high profits and low pollution parts are produced in countries such as Europe, America, Japan and South Korea, and China continues to act as a foundry. The only little consolation is that the robot's mature application and large-scale production will take a long time, may be 50 years or even a century, this time to the Chinese enterprises to catch up with the opportunity, but really can not be so impetuous, so care about the immediate subsidy.

Robot, last look forward

As discussed above, the future of the robot is very good, but to the large-scale commercial still have to wait for a long time, especially in China business, in the short term can not be achieved, on the one hand, there is no breakthrough technology bottlenecks, on the other hand, the social dimension does not allow the robot to replace natural labor. As we all know, the human cost of China is rising year, but the enterprise must not be for the social resettlement of these people, and as labor-intensive enterprises are the manufacturing industry are large, this is why Foxconn's massive inland migration, everywhere lined, or this is Gou "million robot" Another catch that the plan failed to shape. It is true that robots and ancillary industries will bring a large number of new jobs, but at present China's vocational education is not enough to turn line workers into technical experts, rashly replaced by robots, it is likely to push them to Dongguan. In short, robot large-scale business is a long and arduous process, the need for technical, economic and institutional coordination of development, any one factor of negligence will trigger "robot tragedy."

Of course, this does not prevent the author and readers last look forward to the future of the robot, hope to enjoy the future of the dream of the good, Chinese practitioners can do from the basic technology, every day to cultivate a good basic skills, until all the time ripe, China no longer only a robot factory.

In fact, a huge bubble can blow up, naturally also inseparable from the "logical" assessment, and, moreover, the IQ of investors will not be too low. There is no doubt that industrial robots will be in the right period of time to carry out the storm-type development, perhaps until now the assembly line women are successfully married after it. These simple-face robots may be just an arm, but they can help humans do tedious, heavy work, such as IPhone6 Plus's functional testing, such as hazardous work in a dust-filled planer workshop, and with the development of large data, cloud computing and sensor technologies, Robots will further liberate mankind from the heavy work, to that time, perhaps "labor" can really become the first demand of mankind, those rich people will spend 200 yuan a day, the purpose is to find some work;

In addition, the beauty robot appearing on the CES exhibition also heralds the great potential of entertainment, service and even the endowment robot market. In fact, the domestic has introduced a number of service robots, they can independently complete the welcome, number, business inquiries, business introduction, customer guidance, such as a series of lobby manager's work. At present, the relevant technology can fully meet these simple job needs, is a logical healthy development bar! In addition to the service-type robot, the old-age companion robot becomes a new round of discussion hotspot. According to the 2014 Civil Affairs Bureau data, the number of elderly people over 60 years of age in China has exceeded 200 million, accounting for 14, 9% of the total population, and the current economic development in China is very unbalanced, which leads to the inability of young people to take care of their parents. Helping young Chinese to escape from heavy housework and guilt is bound to be another important topic in the industry. In short, everything is very good, just time to precipitate. (Sci-fi Galaxy Constantine/Wen)