Sure, it is a advertising and marketing gimmick. Certain, it is type 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 automobiles from Mad Max instances, is releasing an uncommon software program replace to rejoice a lonely robotic 1000’s of miles away. In early August, the Curiosity Mars rover will flip 10 years previous. Following the software program replace, some 100,000 Husqvarna Automowers all over the world will be capable of sing Completely satisfied Birthday to the intrepid explorer.
There’s some backstory right here (and, after all, a video). The engineers behind Curiosity clearly had some enjoyable. They programmed the superior information assortment robotic to sing Completely satisfied Birthday to itself, which it did on its first birthday in Area. 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 singular house in well-liked creativeness, and whereas anthropomorphizing a machine is all the time questionable these Rovers (and the workforce behind them) are worthy of celebration. My children love a guide known as Good Evening Oppy, concerning the Alternative rover, and there are comparable titles about Curiosity.
“For us, this can be a approach to pay homage to the good engineering work of NASA, and that of our in depth workforce of robotic specialists, by letting our robotic mowers rejoice a fellow robotic … no one ought to should sing Completely satisfied 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 Residence, Amazon Alexa, and IFTTT. This newest software program replace is obtainable on August 5 and has a little bit of Elon Musk aptitude to it. When you have an Automower, the replace is obtainable to fashions 405X, 415X, and 435X AWD and can change into accessible completely in September for Automower homeowners to be used of their future birthday celebrations.