Hay fever bots warn public about pollen
A chart on Weather News' site details the pollen threat around Japan, with a picture of the round robot that can help detect it.
(Credit: Weather News)Allergies are probably the most obvious way nature tells you it doesn't want you around. I know this love/hate relationship very well because it's spring and I've been sneezing in fits. What I don't always know, however, is how much nature hates me and just when it'll show it.
Fortunately, there are robots to help you with just that--if you live in Japan, that is.
This pollen bot is blue, which means the pollen level is on the lower side.
(Credit: Weather News)According to NTDT TV, Weather News, a Japanese weather information company, has produced 500 globe-shaped robots that change color depending on the amount of allergy-causing pollen in the air. These fourth-generation pollen-detecting bots are smaller than previous iterations, according to the company.
The robots can detect different levels of pollen and put them on a scale from 1 to 5 via different colors. The robots actually look more like big fluorescent lights. Actually, I'm not why sure they're called robots; they don't even look cute.
Nonetheless, the robots have been installed across Japan. Apart from telling the owner and people around about the pollen threat levels, the robots also collect data on temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure and transmit it to Weather News, which then combines and releases it to the public via the Internet.
This helps allergy sufferers decide when they should stay inside and when and it's safe to go out. Pollen watchers can also sign up for a service that sends pollen conditions to their cell phone every morning.
NTDT TV notes that Japan, and especially Tokyo, is a place where allergies are a big problem because of the ubiquity of cedar trees. These trees can be found everywhere in the country, and on nice days, pollen can even be seen with the naked eye like a cloud hovering above the forest.
I hope someday we can find these robots in the U.S. In the meantime, I guess I will continue to have to take pills while loving nature.
CNET's Takayuki Sakurai contributed to this report.
Dong Ngo is a CNET editor who covers networking and network storage, and writes about anything else he finds interesting. You can also listen to his podcast at insidecnetlabs.cnet.com. E-mail Dong. 
