THE NEW ROBOTS

Evening Star, Issue 19773, 25 January 1928, Page 3

THE NEW ROBOTS

MAKING THE TELEVOX DO YOUR WORK " Peep, peep, peep," remarks the housekeeper, rather anxiously using the language of the new mechanical marvel, the televox, and speaking over the telephone, " Buzz, buzz, buzz—buzz-z-z-z.’’ replies the televox, respectfully. 'foot!” conics the housewife's stern order. Buzz!” snappy but meek, from the televox. The cloud lifts from my lady’s brow, she rises from the telephone and settles serenely back into her bridge game at the club, knowing that, though she has no human servant at home, the dinner will be cooked when she returns. Being a daughter of the new mechanical age, in which, we arc told, machines are going to do most of the housework, this imaginary lady of the future is spending the afternoon at her club and leaving the televox at home to' mind the furnace and must the chicken for dinner. You have just heard her ordering the iron servant to turn on the heat in the electric oven, and the final snappy "Buzz!” which cleared the lines from her brow was the faithful televox’s brusk way of announcing that it bad closed the electric switch and started the chicken to browning. * The televox, science tells us, is an automatic device by which distant mechanisms can be operated by sound. The housekeeper you have just been overhearing bad to use three small pipes, each giving a note in a different pitch, iu order to get things done in her telcvocally equipped home a mile away; but it is believed that different tones of the human voice can ultimately be made to perform this miracle. And there are many things that the new device can do. If you had dropped in at the mythical club a little laler yon might have heard the same housewife ordering the iron servant to open the furnace draughts and have the house warm when she got home—and getting a nice buzzy assurance that it had been done.

The daily Press likens these wage less servants io the Robots that figured iu a popular play a few seasons ago, and describes them as “a new race of niecha.nicid men, conceived and brought forth in a scientific laboratory.” Wo read in the New York 'Evening Post’:

"Bike Rossum’s Universal Robots, these men of metal can be made (o do the work of human beings, in times of ponce operating the wheels of industry, and in time of war destroying lives. " Oporatorloss machinery can be called up on the, telephone miles away, asked questions, given instructions, and put to work. Through this device sound is used for the first time as the controlling principle in operating automatic machinery. ' The inventor is R. .1. Wensley, chief of the automatic control division of the Westinghouse Company, in their Pittsburgh plant. His Robot is known as the Westinghouso televocai supervisory control system.

The device came into being because of the demand of a large public utility company for a mechanism that would lake the place of watch operators at small sub-sta-tions, where the expense of maintenance is high in proportion lo the current handled through the stations This plan will cut down the cost of maintaining large substations from 25 to 50 per cent., extend their area of usefulness, and bring better service to the customers of electricity. "The new control system is now being used in Washington by the water supply department to keep tab on the height of water in the reservoirs. The engineer in the central office simply telephones the Robot watching (ho reservoir in question, calling him up as he would a human being, and the Robot gives him the height of water over the telephone. " But ttic practical applications scarcely have been suggested ms yet. Harry G. Woods of (ho Westinghouse engineering division says that Wcnsly's Robots could be used to willcli (ho movement of enemy aircraft in the darkest night, to guard ihc entrances of harbors, or onerato from a distance batteries of searchlights, as well ns directing and discharging powerful weapons of destruction. “Installed in the, home the Robot could be called up over the telephone by a housewife and told to heat the oven, regulate the furnace, and open or close the windows, alter telling her how warm each room was. “In (he operation of an electric power sub-station it reduces the tabor cost from the present cost of 7Codot a month to 125d0l a month.”

Tho controllii:? principle in (lie new mechanism, wo arc told, lies iu its sensilivity, through a, series of sound filters, to sounds of different pitch. Tims we read further: “In its present slate the Robot is set. to operate by sound waves of 1,400 eyries frequency, made to work by sound waves of 900 cycles frequency and stopped by sound waves of 6CO cycles frequency. ‘‘Signals have been transmitted in tests by simply whistling through a telephone, but operation by the unman voice is not. practicable except experimentally. A whistle which gives exact pitch, hewover, can ho used to give the. signal. The. operating device now used consists of three electricallyvibrated Inning forks, which send sounds of the. desired pitch over the, telephone wires.

“When tho lelfphono operator makes tnc connection the mechanical man is brought suddenly io life. He gives back ids own particular signal, so that the engineer desiring to give him instructions may be. sure ho is talking io the right automaton. Robot docs this twice, and if lie is not commanded' the telephone connection is at once shut off automatically.

“If a command is Io bo. given, however, th« engineer sends him a signal—once, twice, three or more times, according to the particular device with which he wishes the Robot to connect him. The mechanism is selective on the same principle ns the automatic telephone. “When the pioper conned ion is made a return signal again comes back, notifying tho engineer (hat. (ho Robot is ready to perform. Then a signal is given by the Robot which indicates whether the circuit, over which control is to be exorcised is oncu or closed. If the engineer wishes to close the circuit or open it. the signal for action is given on flic 900-cyclo frequency, end tho device is put to work, whether it 100 (ho heating of an oven nr the explosion of a mine or demanding an answer from the man of metals and chemicals ”

On its editorial page the ‘Post’ opines that the story of these “ telovooal Robots” makes “ terrifying rending.'’ .lint it gees on to quality:—“There is one saving grace to tho horrific idea of having a lot of purely mechanislic servants added to a world already far too mechanical. This ‘ tclcvocal' automaton looks nothing like a man. ‘lt looks,’ says ‘The Times,’ ‘like a hybrid between a six-tube radio set and a telephone switchboard on election night,' Thanks be that, ws won't he afraid to meet, it. in Urn dark I”

From across t.lie oc?nn also comes a ’io(c of caution advising’ the housewife to wait, a while before preparing to co out of business at the ohl stand. Says the Paris ‘ Times ’ ;

“No sooner does the Wcstinghouse Electric Company announce in New York that it has invented an ‘Automatic man’ which docs all sorts of tasks merely at the command of the human voice than someone—in this care a British engineer—comes along and micstions (ho claim lhat its uses are boundless. “ ‘ If T were a housewife I should not be too optimistic about this now “ domestic treasure,”’ savs the engineer. ‘lt will be a long time before it—or she—can be commanded to go upstairs and fetch the blue silk jumper out of the bottom drawer and go and see what (he baby is doing and tell him not (o do it. The baby might be clever enough to switch off the Robot from her appointed task by saying ‘Hand me that jam pot.” “ The same engineer finds that an automatic man controlled by the human voice has a perfect master already in existence. But he is jmparently too wise a husband to go on and explain just what he means by that remark.”