Four of Japan’s top robot startups have decided to pool their efforts in order to meet the threat of rival South Korea overcoming Japan’s lead int he race to commercialize robot technology.
Japan, which has long led the world in robo-technology, has created machines that can clean, dance, greet, feed, monitor, relax and befriend. But for all the buzz, so-called “intelligent service robots” have been slow to penetrate the average home, which is still more likely to shell out money for the latest flat screen TV than a pricey humanoid.
The companies — Tokyo’s ZMP Inc., Nagoya’s Business Design Laboratory Co., Osaka’s Vstone Co. and Fukuoka’s Tmsuk — say that new South Korean robot legislation passed earlier this year compelled them to form the “Association for market creation of the future generation robots” to cooperate in research, development and marketing.
Apparently the South Korean government is committed to having a robot in every house by 2020, and the country’s National Assembly has passed legislation to promote development and marketing through financial support.
Sega Toys has come out with a new plastic plant robot thingy that apparently is designed for people who have no one to talk to.
The Pekoppa sits there like a regular plastic plant until you talk to it, which will cause the stem to bend, creating the impression that the plant is nodding in agreement with what you are saying to it. The effect is achieved by an IC chip in the pot that identifies rhythms of human speech. Electrical current causes the stem to bend and stretch.
Thanks to Len Cullum
Japan’s oldest “modern” robot — the 10-foot, 6-inch GakuTenSoku — has been awakened in Japan. Gone are the inflatable rubber tubes of the original 1928 android build by biologist Makoto Nishimura. The bot now tilts its head, moves his eyes, smiles, and puffs out his cheeks thanks to a $200,000, computer-controlled, pneumatic-servo makeover. While nothing compared to his modern offspring, GakuTenSoku still manages to creep us the hell out. On display at the renovated Osaka Science Museum starting July 18th.
The folks who manufacture the Little Jammer Pro, an audio system with small robots that “perform” music as it is played from special cartridges, have announced a Hibari Misora add-on.
Now how can watch as a tiny virtual Hibari Misora, backed by a full (but tiny) virtual orchestra, performs some of her old favorites from days gone by.
“A 200-strong army of beady-eyed, ball-shaped robots” is being deployed nationwide, says Pink Tentacle.
Not quite as scary as they might sound, these spherical chaps are “Pollen Robots” and are to be employed by Weathernews.jp to monitor the pollen count. And this being Japan, they have built-in Cute – the ‘eyes’ light up different colours as the level changes.
As the Asahi reports, when the Japanese cedar and cypress get that lovin’ feelin’ and go into their springtime overdrive, data on the pollen count will be sent from these robots to the site. They’ll be stationed outside the homes of a couple of hundred volunteers, all hay-fever sufferers, who will also be reporting on their symptoms.
As the Asahi gravely intones, “Pollen levels from Japanese cedar and cypress are expected to be higher than last year in many parts of the country.” Oh joy.
The U.S. researchers at Duke University in North Carolina pinned down correlated patterns between a monkey’s brain nerve signals and leg movements. The monkey was trained to walk upright on a treadmill, its brain studded with electrodes to read the signals.
The signals were fed into a humanoid robot that walked in response to the signals.
“There may come an era when you could move a remotely located robot as if it is yourself and play tennis with it,” said Mitsuo Kawato, research director of a Japan Science and Technology Agency research institute in Seika, Kyoto Prefecture.
Wouldn’t playing tennis with yourself result in endless rallies?
“Dentistry in the uncanny valley” is what Pink Tentacle calls its report on Simroid — a robotic dental patient with an eerily realistic appearance. And that’s pretty accurate. Well, a trip to the dentist can be like descending into the uncanny valley anyways, but this is worse.
Making her debut at the 2007 International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo, Simroid is actually a sister of Actroid (who has got somewhat better than when first invented a few years ago). Here is part of Pink Tentacle’s description and some video of Simroid in action along with other inhuman participants at the exhibition:
Designed primarily as a training tool for dentists, the fembot patient can follow spoken instructions, closely monitor a dentist’s performance during mock treatments, and react in a human-like way to mouth pain. Because Simroid’s realistic appearance and behavior motivate people to treat her like a human being, as opposed to an object, she helps dental trainees learn how to better communicate with patients … she has something the Actroid does not — sensitive teeth. Thanks to a mouth loaded with sensors, she knows when her dentist-in-training makes a mistake. And to express her pain, she grimaces, moves her hands and eyes, and says, “That hurts.”
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that in ancient china if you were REALLY fat that meant you were...
omg i feel so bad for a that monkey help it some one plzzzz