(Credit:
ATR)
A humanoid robot has been deployed to a supermarket in Japan to help senior shoppers with their grocery purchases.
The modified version of the Robovie II robot developed by Japan's Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, or ATR, is working as a temporary shopping assistant at Apita-Seikadai supermarket in Kyoto until March. It's another experiment to test the viability of advanced personal robots in everyday situations.
Robovie can wirelessly receive a list of items selected beforehand by the customer, carry the shopping basket, and make recommendations about what to buy.
In the video below, the robot slowly follows a 67-year-old woman around the supermarket, carrying her basket, as they are followed by reporters. Robovie keeps telling the lady that the fruit she puts in the basket looks delicious, to which she agrees. It then suggests lettuce for a salad.
ATR's Robovie series has been developed into several machines. Some have been used as crowd monitors to detect people who are lost, while others have been miniaturized as hobby robots.
Via Pink Tentacle
Guinness World Records has certified a Japanese researcher's camera as having the most lenses in the world at 158.
(Credit:
Nagoya Institute of Technology)
Yojiro Ishino of the Nagoya Institute of Technology created the super camera with his students in August to photograph flames from many different angles to better understand their structure.
The research goal is to find more efficient ways of burning fuel for engines.
The camera images can be used to create realistic computer-generated graphics of the flames in 3D. Ishino created a lower-res camera with only 40 lenses in 2003.
His latest camera measures 1.5 feet in diameter and 2.8 inches tall. It took Ishino and his students about six months to assemble the 158 high-power lenses into four rows along a semicircle.
Each lens cost about 200 yen, or $2.24, and the team bought 800 lenses for the project. Guinness required that each of the 158 lenses in the camera was operational before certifying the machine.
Japanese robot maker Kokoro, best known for its Actroid line of ultra-lifelike androids, will make robot clones of people in a special limited-time offer.
Osaka University roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro (right) and his android clone, Geminoid.
(Credit: Tim Hornyak)The New Year promotion is being offered via select department stores in Japan. People willing to pay about $225,000 can have themselves recreated in robot form, with their robot clone having exactly the same face, hair, eyes, and body.
Kokoro will also model the buyer's voice, facial expressions, and upper-body movements to create the most lifelike doppelganger possible.
The Actroid and Geminoid androids are powered by a quiet air servo system that moves their upper bodies. They cannot walk.
Both are based on real people--one version of Actroid was based on a Japanese newscaster, and Geminoid is based on Osaka University roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro.
Kokoro is only offering to make two robot clones. If more than two orders are received, the lucky buyers will be selected by lottery.
(Via Pink Tentacle)
(Credit:
Video screenshot by Tim Hornyak/CNET)
Major Japanese toilet maker Toto has created a talking commode. The new Neo model has a robotic lid that moves in time with its voice, which for some reason is male.
Neo features in a series of short video ads for the Japanese market, apparently as a joke. The videos show Neo chatting with a man about everyday things like relationships and riding Japan Railways trains.
The company's Tototalk campaign promotes the Neo 2 prototype model, which is currently on display in the Caretta Shiodome mall in downtown Tokyo. Check it out in the video below.
Neo 2 is designed to provide every function imaginable, a tongue-in-cheek reference to Japan's highly engineered toilets. Neo 2's ridiculously long armrest features more than 10 buttons. They can make Neo 2 tell jokes, give the weather forecast, or display an outsize bum scrubber.
The same functions can be controlled via a real-time Web link and Webcam at the Tototalk Web site.
In one joke, Neo talks about the U.S. cities of Onalaska in Texas and Wisconsin. The name is pronounced "Onaraska" in Japanese, and "onara" means "fart."
In their endless quest to engineer toilets into high-tech electronic waste receptacles, Japanese manufacturers have produced Western-style toilets that have remote controls, bum spray and bidet functions, heated seats, and dozens of buttons to control the various functions. Public toilets for women often have a Toto function called Otohime, or "sound princess," which masks the sound of urination with an artificial flushing noise.
Toto was also behind such innovations as the Washlet bum shower, a function called "Tornado flushing" and the tankless toilet. Some have contributed to cutting water use.
Osaka, Japan-based Eager Co. is developing recyclable cardboard robots to work as mannequins that show off clothing in retail display spaces.
Eager showed off the female D+ropop mannequins at the recent 2009 International Robot Exhibition (iRex) here in Tokyo. They're billed as the world's most environmentally friendly robots because they're made of corrugated cardboard.
The mannequin bots only have a few servomotors but can still move their arms and heads gracefully. Each weighs about 13 pounds and is nearly 6 feet tall. They can also be painted and printed with logos for other advertising purposes.
The dummy bots will go on sale this month in Japan, priced at $5,400 and up. They can be rented for about $1,800 per week.
Eager envisions them being used in storefronts, and at events and other venues to attract attention. The company apparently aims to capture 1 percent of the global retail mannequin market, not easy for an obscure start-up in this economy.
But who knows? If Old Navy can cause a stir with its SuperModelquin mannequins, there's hope for the D+ropop gals.
Researchers in Japan are developing robotic roller skates as a new form of personal mobility.
(Credit:
Tim Hornyak)
Toshinobu Takei of Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) demonstrated his "Unit-type Micro-Mobility" device at the 2009 International Robot Exhibition (iRex) in Tokyo this week.
We haven't seen too many gadgets like these, but what with the plethora of prototype personal vehicles like Honda's U3-X unicycle in Japan lately, they aren't surprising.
The prototype skates are actually mechatronic versions of "takeuma," which are old-school bamboo stilts that kids used to play with in Japan before their lives were consumed by cell phones and video games.
The aluminum skates move automatically when the user leans forward, but the attached poles must also be grasped. Users can roll or step forward with them.
Each skate contains a wheel, three accelerometers, and gyroscopes, and weighs about 11 pounds, according to Takei, part of AIST's Field Robotics Research Group.
Top speed is about 2.5 mph.
Takei said the skates are still in development, but added they are less bulky than a Segway.
Could they spark a new roller disco boom? Everyone would dance The Robot, of course.
(Credit:
Tech On)
Don't you hate it when your TV remote runs out of juice? Or when your clicker gets totaled by a battery leak? NEC and Soundpower Corporations' new battery-less remote control may be the solution. This technology is based on three key components:
- Vibration power generation that harnesses energy created by clicking a remote button
- A microprocessor that transmits and receives data in varying bandwidths
- A power supply controller that drives the electronics with minimal electricity
It will probably take some time for this technology to mature, but both companies are planning to promote its adoption in the consumer electronics market as early as 2011. That said, do we have to click such remotes furiously just to get them running fresh out-of-the-box?
(Source: Crave Asia via Tech On)
Thirty-five years ago, Hello Kitty dropped an atomic cute bomb on the world and the universe was forever changed.
Developed in 1974, the iconic kawaii cat debuted with Japanese character licensing firm Sanrio in 1975 on a small change purse that sold for 240 yen (around 80 cents at the time). Sanrio has since built a vast global empire on Kitty's popularity, and related licensing deals now account for a huge chunk (some say about half) of Sanrio's $5 billion in annual sales.
Over the past three and a half decades, Kitty's mouth-missing face has graced thousands upon thousands of products, from wallets, trash cans, alarm clocks, stationary, and airplanes to cell phones, cell phone chargers, Netbooks, massively multiplayer online role-playing games, USB lap warmers, karaoke systems, and even assault rifles--yes assault rifles.
Kitty's 35th birthday year has proven to be yet another opportunity for a merchandising bonanza, and fortunately (or tragically, depending on your perspective), the global fat cat shows absolutely no sign of slowing down or loosening her claw-like grip on the consumer electronics industry. So to fete the feline on her special occasion, we breathed a sigh of resignation and rounded up some of the scariest cutest Hello Kitty gadgets from the past year (see our gallery above).
Didn't we hear the retirement age for fictional Japanese cats is 36?
(Credit:
Triumph International Japan)
(Credit:
Triumph International Japan)
Sometimes you just want to practice your putting. If you're near a woman wearing Triumph International Japan's new golf outfit (in Japanese), and you can convince her to take it off, you can putt to your heart's content.
Yes, this ludicrous item, which is not yet for sale, consists of a green bra that transforms into a putting green, with the cups turning into holes. Sink a putt, and a speaker says, "Nice shot!" There's also a skirt that turns into a flag that says, "Be Quiet" on it, for keeping onlookers hushed while you golf next to a naked woman.
You probably won't be surprised to hear that Triumph also brought us such other classics as the Manhunter bra.
This story originally appeared on Gizmodo.
(Credit:
Hanaoka)
Japanese artist Hanaoka likes to cover objects in grass. Cars, business card holders, cufflinks, ashtrays, compact mirrors...you name it. He even blankets computer peripherals with the stuff.
To wit: the grass mouse pictured at right. Pair it with this grass cell phone and start the hose (or maybe that's not such a good idea).
Thanks to my ever-helpful co-worker/translator Takayuki Sakurai, I'm able to glean that Hanaoka has, in the past, made his verdant mouse available for purchase, though we're not seeing evidence that it's currently for sale. If you're liking the grass-on-all-things idea, however, the artist does sell a grass-covered badge for 300 yen (about $3.50) and a grass-covered cell phone strap for 700 yen (about $7.50).
Hanaoka donates 50 percent of his proceedings to a nonprofit called Shibafu Sprit, which aims to make Osaka-area schoolyards green (Shibafu is word for grass in Japanese).
We hear he's also been donating to the Chia Pet Rescue Foundation.
