The Samsung CES booth is chock full of gadgets, but the best thing that we saw there was bot chef, a pair of robotic arms that cooked us a salad on command.
The verdict? It tastes like the future.
The Bot Chef demo at the Samsung CES booth began with a simple voice command: “Hey, Bot Chef, let’s make a salad. ” Tofu was chosen over something like chicken, as there’s a decidedly strict ‘no fire’ rule at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Okay, that’s fair.
Too often, with today’s voice assistants, it’s the other way around: we have to do all the talking with somewhat specific commands. Not only is Bot Chef the one serving up the steps it knows today, it can download new skills as time goes on.
(Image credit: Future)
while it was cubing a slab tofu – so kind of cruel). Bot Chef said it didn’t know how, so the human chef asked it to download that skill.
All of a sudden, Bot Chef began interacting with a traditional coffee machine on the kitchen countertop – one of the perks of bot chef is that it’s able to learn how to manipulate everyday appliances that aren ‘ t traditionally considered ‘smart’.********************************** ************************ (Image credit: Future)
Bot Chef was in the middle of cubing the long slab of tofu using a sharp cutting tool, and this was, of course, the opportune time for the human chef to te st its safety protocols. It slowed down and then stopped its dicing when he got too close, and the Bot Chef employed a friendly buzzer sound to denote that something was amiss.
So, yes, Bot Chef can pick up knives and cut food, but no, its safety mechanisms won’t lead to stabbing accidents – or intentional incidents for that matter: our robotic co-chef isn’t programmed to seek complete kitchen dominance, says Samsung.(What it
cando, which left the CES crowd astounded, was reaching up to open one of the overhead kitchen cabinets . The human chef changed up the recipe midway through the process – apparently our sesame tofu salad needed a little kick.
Amazingly, Samsung Bot Chef was able to maneuver more than degrees above its mount to snag a bottle of Sriracha hot sauce from the closed cabinet. Its fingers are finely tuned enough to know the difference between just picking up a bottle and squeezing it – and best of all, it put the bottle back when it was done and closed the cabinet door.
**************************************************** ((Image credit: Future)
How much will Samsung Bot Chef cost?Our No. **************** 1 question about Bot Chef is “How much will it cost?” We did not get a specific answer, but it won’t be entirely unapproachable, according to Samsung’s part-time human chef / full-time spokesperson.
“In order for this technology to really make an impact in our everyday lives, it needs to be affordable,” he said, explaining that Bot Chef’s maximum payloads should be enough for it to handle full bottles of olive oil and other everyday kitchen items. This isn’t meant for industrial lifting, and that should keep the price down.
“That’s why we’ve engineered these robots from the ground up, using custom gearboxes and electronics that will help their price tag read more like a kitchen appliance than a luxury car,” Bot Chef’s assistant added.
One could justifiably argue that the real cost of robot chef technology like this will be in human chef careers. But the natural counterargument is that it’ll free-up chefs from a bunch of menial tasks so that they can focus on the creative aspects of the cooking process – and, like self-driving cars that still require a human behind the steering wheel, at least for now, this robot chef is dependent on a human a co-chef.
In many ways Bot Chef felt like the most futuristic technology on show at the Samsung CESbooth, despite being located among the company screen-based 5G phones, 8K QLED TVs , giant Wall TVs and rotating Sero displays.
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