新一代机器人来了

    在医学领域，这项技术一开始只在一个相对较小的范围推出，其中有四家采用该机器人的医院在加利福尼亚州【包括加州大学洛杉矶分校（UCLA）的医疗中心】，另外还有哥伦布市的俄亥俄州威克那斯医疗中心（Ohio State Wexner Medical Center）、西弗吉尼亚亨廷顿市的圣玛丽医疗中心（St. Mary's Medical Center）、以及墨西哥城的Instituto de Salud del Estado de México医院。它将首先用于疑似中风病例的治疗，这突出了远程呈现技术最大的能力之一，就是把正确的人放到正确的病房里，去应对正确的情况，不管这个人身在什么地方。中风很难诊断，而且每浪费一分钟，中风对人体的损伤都会成倍上升。而能够诊断和治疗中风病人的神经科医生在美国的分布密度相对而言依然较为稀薄（在其他国家则更低）。RP-VITA的首要目标就是证明它可以在最需要的时间，有效地把专业的医疗服务送到最需要他们的地方，在整个医疗体系内创造更高质量的医疗护理。

    如果RP-VITA获得成功，而且它和其它类似的系统都能得到主流医疗界的认可，那么它的影响将会波及其它行业。如果这些机器人可以在快节奏、甚至往往非常杂乱的医疗环境里取得成功，那么让它在大公司、运输仓库或是工厂里找到适合它的角色应该也不是难事。安格尔说：“我们已经向其它行业发出了有力的声音。如果医院和FDA信任我们在他们的医院里工作，那么自动导航机器人在大家的办公大楼里工作的日子应该也不远了。”

    安格尔表示，如果RP-VITA获得了主流医疗界的认可，将加快远程机器人进入我们生活其它角落的脚步。如果安格尔的判断是正确的，那么RP-VITA的诞生可能标志着远程机器人正在从遥远的未来走向我们的生活。生活助理机器人将不再是新奇的玩意儿，它们将开始成为我们日常生活里一个司空见惯的组成部分。

    安格尔说：“Apple Newton电脑之所以失败了，是因为它虽然是一个很好的创意，但是欠缺易用性。而iPad成功了，是因为它做了足够多对的事。远程呈现产业也面临着相同的挑战。要制造一个差劲的远程呈现机器人玩具还是比较简单的事。但是要想让一个不懂技术、工作繁忙的专业人士把它当作一个好用的工具，却要花10多年的学习和努力。我认为我们会看到RP-VITA成为第一款获得全世界关注的远程呈现产品。”（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    On the medical side, the initial rollout of the technology is relatively small -- four hospitals in California (including UCLA medical center in Los Angeles), Ohio State Wexner Medical Center in Colombus, St. Mary's Medical Center in Huntington, West Va., and the Instituto de Salud del Estado de México in Mexico City. In all cases it will primarily be used in the treatment of suspected stroke cases, thus highlighting one of remote telepresence's greatest abilities: putting the right person in the right room to deal with the right situation, regardless of where that person might physically be. Strokes are difficult to diagnose and can grow exponentially more damaging with every minute that is lost, yet the national supply of top-tier neurologists capable of diagnosing and treating stroke victims is spread relatively thin across the U.S. (and spread even thinner elsewhere). RP-VITA's primary objective is to prove that it can efficiently distribute that medical expertise to the places it's needed most at the time it's needed, creating better patient care across the entire health care system.

    If it's successful and RP-VITA and systems like it are accepted into the mainstream of patient care, the reverberations will be felt far beyond the health care industry. If these robots can hack it in the fast-paced, sometimes disorganized, and often frenetic hospital environment, then acting as couriers in large office settings or extra sets of eyes or hands in shipping warehouses or factory floors should be simple enough, Angle says. "We can already make a strong statement to other industries," he says. "If hospitals trust us and the FDA trusts us to be in their hospitals, then autonomously navigating robots in your building really ought to work."

    In other words, RP-VITA's acceptance into the vast world of health care will accelerate the acceptance of robots into other corners of our lives, Angle says. If he's right, the advent of RP-VITA could mark the moment when telerobotics come in from the horizon and helper robots shed their novelty and start becoming a conventional part of everyday life.

    "The Apple Newton failed because it was a great idea that wasn't usable enough," Angle says, "whereas the iPad succeeded because it got enough right. The remote presence industry has the same challenge. It's relatively straightforward to build a really bad, minutes-of-fun telepresence robot. It's taken over a decade of learning and attempts to get something that a busy professional who is not a technologist would view as an easy-to-use tool. I think we'll see RP-VITA as the first remote presence product that gains traction in the world."