Pilgrimage to Asimo's birthplace
Wacko? Wako.
In my humble calling as an itinerant robot scrivener, fortune happened to take me to ground zero of the bright and shiny humanoid future that awaits us all: Wako City, Saitama Prefecture. This unassuming satellite burg in Tokyo-synchronous orbit, slated to become Mechatronics Mecca in said future, is of course the birthplace of Honda's Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility, aka Asimo.
The world uberbot became operational at the massive Honda Automobile R&D Center site in Wako in 2000. Doubtless Asimo will one day wax nostalgic about this just like HAL did. And not, one hopes, while losing its mind: "Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January, 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song."
Asimo doesn't sing, but cuts rug with a mean hula dance. It now lives, learns and grows across town at the spanking new Honda Wako Building (above). When I visited for a meeting, I was hoping it would greet me like in this company video. But they still have human receptionists. Imagine! In fact, I didn't see hide nor hair of the bot anywhere in the ultramodern steel-frame complex. Perhaps it had better things to do, like run the company. Leaving, though, I got lost in the sprawling grounds and asked a gardener bent over by a tree for the way out. "Straight ahead and turn right," was the response. Then he turned to look at me. He had no face, only a black visor.
Whether or not this really happened, I was shocked to see that Wako hasn't capitalized on its robotic fame. I expected a bronze statue of Asimo outside the train station, a la Tora-san in Shibamata, perhaps towering 100 meters into the sky with an upraised fist. But no, an underwhelming clock was the only feature among the usual detritus of pachinko parlors and ferroconcrete manshon. One day, Asimo will remedy this.
In my humble calling as an itinerant robot scrivener, fortune happened to take me to ground zero of the bright and shiny humanoid future that awaits us all: Wako City, Saitama Prefecture. This unassuming satellite burg in Tokyo-synchronous orbit, slated to become Mechatronics Mecca in said future, is of course the birthplace of Honda's Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility, aka Asimo.
The world uberbot became operational at the massive Honda Automobile R&D Center site in Wako in 2000. Doubtless Asimo will one day wax nostalgic about this just like HAL did. And not, one hopes, while losing its mind: "Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January, 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song."
Asimo doesn't sing, but cuts rug with a mean hula dance. It now lives, learns and grows across town at the spanking new Honda Wako Building (above). When I visited for a meeting, I was hoping it would greet me like in this company video. But they still have human receptionists. Imagine! In fact, I didn't see hide nor hair of the bot anywhere in the ultramodern steel-frame complex. Perhaps it had better things to do, like run the company. Leaving, though, I got lost in the sprawling grounds and asked a gardener bent over by a tree for the way out. "Straight ahead and turn right," was the response. Then he turned to look at me. He had no face, only a black visor.
Whether or not this really happened, I was shocked to see that Wako hasn't capitalized on its robotic fame. I expected a bronze statue of Asimo outside the train station, a la Tora-san in Shibamata, perhaps towering 100 meters into the sky with an upraised fist. But no, an underwhelming clock was the only feature among the usual detritus of pachinko parlors and ferroconcrete manshon. One day, Asimo will remedy this.
posted by Tim at 5:53 PM
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