Evolution Robotics announced that Taiwan is moving to standardize on their robotics software platform [via Robot Gossip]:
Pasadena, Calif. – February 8, 2007 – Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) announced today that it has selected the Evolution Robotics Software Platform (ERSP) to provide a standard architecture for robotic application development in Taiwan.
[...]
By adopting the ERSP Architecture, ITRI supported organizations in Taiwan will not only have fully working software for building and running their applications, they will also have a common standard for integrating technologies with each other as well as companies around the world.
“Well over 100 different companies and universities have licensed the ERSP platform for research and commercial development,” said Dr. Paolo Pirjanian, President and CEO of Evolution Robotics. “Now, with ITRI’s forward-looking efforts to establish standards in the market, a company in Taiwan that develops a new telepresence control application could easily license that to a company in Europe that has a mobile robot on the market running the ERSP architecture.”
“We believe this coordinated approach using our SDK and the ERSP architecture will lead to much more rapid innovation of new technologies, faster time to market for new products, and overall, a stronger competitive position for Taiwan in robotics,” said Mr. Pao of ITRI.
I don't know enough about Taiwan's robot industry or ITRI's role in that industry to have a good idea of the significance of this announcement, but I'm always excited by the prospect of a lot of people using software I've worked on (though apparently it has its detractors).
And if Taiwan does choose to focus on security robots, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to leverage my intimate knowledge of the software to acquire my own for-real robot army.
Posted by jjwiseman at February 13, 2007 02:27 PM