Hardware costs are going down, electromechanical components are more reliable, tools for making robots are richer, programming environments are more readily available, and robots have access to the world’s knowledge through the cloud.
Recent advances in disk storage, the scale and performance of the Internet, wireless communication, tools supporting design and manufacturing, and the power and efficiency of electronics, coupled with the worldwide growth of data storage, have impacted the development of robots in multiple ways. Hardware costs are going down, electromechanical components are more reliable, tools for making robots are richer, programming environments are more readily available, and robots have access to the world’s knowledge through the cloud. We can begin to imagine the leap from the personal computer to the personal robot, leading to many applications where robots exist pervasively and work side by side with humans.