Loving the Machine book tour!

I'll be preaching the gospel of Japanese robots on the U.S. West and East coasts later this month!

The tour kicks off Sept. 20th in Seattle at the Science Fiction Museum & Hall of Fame. Yowza. Very psyched for that.

I'll also hit San Francisco, Berkeley, Stanford, Pittsburgh, Cambridge and New York. The tour schedule so far:

• Seattle, WA Wednesday, Sept. 20, 7:30 p.m. Science Fiction Museum & Hall of Fame
• San Francisco, CA Thursday, Sept. 21, 7:00 p.m. Bookshop West Portal 80 West Portal Avenue
• Berkeley, CA Friday, Sept. 22, 5:30 p.m. Dark Carnival 3086 Claremont Avenue
• Stanford, CA Saturday, Sept. 23, 1:00 p.m. Stanford Bookstore 519 Lausen Mall
• Pittsburgh, PA Monday, Sept. 25, 12:00 Carnegie Mellon Bookstore 5032 Forbes Ave.
• Monroeville PA Monday, Sept. 25, 7:00 p.m. Borders Books and Music 200 Mall Blvd.
• Cambridge, MA Tuesday, Sept. 26, 5:00 p.m. MIT Coop Bookstore 3 Cambridge Center
• New Haven, CT Thursday, Sept. 28, 6:00 p.m. Yale Bookstore 77 Broadway
• New York, NY Friday, Sept. 29, 7:30 p.m. Barnes & Noble 396 6th Avenue at 8th St.
• Washington, DC Monday Oct. 2, 12:00 p.m. Japan-America Society of Washington, DC

I'm thinking of offering lessons on Japanese robot protocol. When to bow, when to use keigo, that sort of thing. Anything to get on the good side of our new superhuman pals. ; p

Robot hospital opens in Osaka

The doctor will debug you now.

Got aches in your actuators? Pains in your processor? Then check in to Osaka's new robot hospital.

The Akazawa Roboclinic admitted its first in-patient recently, a humanoid shipped by courier from Bunkyo Ward in Tokyo. The hospital is a side business launched by machinery maker Systec Akazawa. It offers diagnosis and treatment for down-and-out droids.

The clinic, located above a company plant in Fukushima Ward, is just like a hospital for humans. It has all the proper signs over the doors to its various departments, including examination, operating and rehabilitation rooms. Its staff of four, led by hospital chief Dr. Ohno, are decked out in white lab coats. Of course, patients are provided with detailed medical charts. No word yet on whether the food is just as bad as in other hospitals.

The most common ailments treated by Dr. Ohno and his team are faulty motors, severed wires and fractured frames. Their goal is to cure their patients within a week of admission. After all, there's no such thing as robot medical insurance. Yet.

Check out a report from Asahi Broadcasting here.

Ghettoblasting with Gundam

Much media ado recently in Japan over ZMP's latest machine Miuro, a wheeled iPod music player that moves around autonomously while it rocks the house.

Sure Miuro is slick. But it costs $930 and it isn't available at your local kombini, unlike this robot head from Banpresto.

Spotted on a recent milk run to the corner Family Mart, the RX-78 Gundam head speakers can blare your tunes as well as terrify robophobic foreigners. And they can be had for a mere $4 lottery ticket that also allows you to win Gundam towels, cushions, CD players and mugs.

Sushi, manga and mobile suits. Further proof that Japanese convenience stores are the ne plus ultra of cheap thrills.