As we welcome the New Year, I’ve been thinking about how robots have advanced through the years. A robot is a machine that functions on its own or under remote human control to perform useful tasks. For many years robots were little more than concepts in the imaginative minds of science fiction writers. Advances in micro-processors, sensors, and actuators created the technological underpinnings for the first practical robots, which were bolted to factory floors in the 1960s. When computers become small enough, the first mobile robots were built.

As Moore’s Law inexorably compounded the number of transistors on the micro-chip the computer industry went mainstream and a rich eco-system of supporting technologies followed. RF communications, image sensors, the Internet, and HD displays moved PC applications far beyond expectations. Today, micro-processors are principally powering communications devices. It is fitting, therefore, that by harnessing the power of Moore’s Law and PC offshoot technologies; VGo is advancing the very idea of what a robot is and what tasks it performs. I wonder if in 20 years we’ll look back on 2012 as the year people began to think of robots as practical communications devices.