Innovative API’s take out your trash!

Text messaging applications have been taken to new heights or in this case lows with the Dustbot, a rubbish collecting robot that was launched in Italy last month. The Dustbot, which resembles the friendly looking R2D2 from the Star Wars movie in appearance is summoned to pick up the trash via mobile phone – either a call or SMS text message.

The robot works with GPS navigation to find its way to your house and is being used in a pilot study by the Tuscany local authorities for use in areas that are difficult to access with a garbage truck. The inventors are hoping that it will put an end to fixed times for rubbish collection in tightly packed urban areas. There have already been requests for the robot from other municipalities throughout Europe, including the UK, and the rest of the world.

Once the robot receives its text messaged directions, it relays the information, again through a SMS message, to the command centre. Ditto for when it is full and needs to return to base. The advantages of using text messaging applications are multi-fold. They include the speed and reliability of delivery of the message; a real-time record of garbage orders and response times as well as cutting communication costs between departments. The benefits to consumers include obviously the opportunity to have their garbage removed at a time that suits them and at a very minimal cost as text messages still remain one of the cheapest forms of communication available today.

The downside to the Dustbot is that it is only capable of picking up 40kg of rubbish before it needs to dump but it is possible that the prototype, with its non-threatening appearance, is just the first of a series of automated and text message controlled machines that can be put to a variety of uses. Using the mobile phone as a personal control centre to organise automated functions such as your garbage removal is just the beginning of what is possible.

This innovative application of text message commands from a mobile phone could see the start of a whole new wave of innovative API’s (application programming interfaces) that use SMS text messaging as the primary communication channel for consumer orientated products.

Developers wanting to make their mark in the mobile world would do well to think out of the box when it comes to using text messaging which is the most flexible and affordable communication option available today.

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Tags: API, application programming interface, Clickatell, dustbot, mobile messaging, mobile phones, SMS, SMS message, SMS text messaging, text message applications, text messages, text messaging