Puppy love, redux

Another robot dog will hit store shelves in Japan in October following the demise of Sony's popular Aibo last year. Sega Toys has announced it will market Mio, a small toy robot dog that can express its "emotions" and respond to petting. It has sensors on its head, chin and back. Mio's eyes will display over a hundred icons to express psychological states. It can also respond to voice with its own "babble," play music and shuffle along. There's a video here.

Retailing for 9,240 yen ($75), Mio is part of Sega Toys' "Dream Pet" line of robotic animals that includes Yume Neko Smile, a lifelike synthetic cat.

Bank on it

From an HSBC ad at Narita Airport outside Tokyo. It was the last thing I saw in Japan before a recent trip stateside where I spoke at the National Academy of Science along with astronaut Mamoru Mori and robot creator Tomotaka Takahashi. HSBC, which calls itself "the world's local bank," clearly knows the Japanese market - many baby boomers would be struck by a natsukashii (nostalgic) feeling when seeing tin toys from the fifties and sixties like this one.

New robot ready for dirty work

The latest humanoid robot unveiled in Japan is nice and shiny but wants to get its hands dirty.

The HRP-3 Promet Mark II is designed to work in tunnels, disaster zones and other dangerous environments. Jointly developed by bridge-builder Kawada Industries, Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and others, HRP showed off its skills tightening bolts and screwing screws. Check out the funky video here - it also drops the driver with studied nonchalance. But then again it only has three fingers.

Rain- and dust-proof, the latest droid in the HRP series (for Humanoid Robotics Project) stands 160 cm (5'2") tall and weighs 68 kg (150 lbs). Mechanically, it is more sophisticated than the HRP-2, with 12 more degrees of freedom for a total of 42. This reflects improved grasping ability, a skill many humanoids in Japan lack. The robot can also operate autonomously or by remote control. Anime mecha designer Yutaka Izubuchi (who worked on Gundam, Patlabor and Macross) did Mark II's exterior.

The developers plan to keep improving the HRP series with an eye to commercialization by 2010 at a cost of $80,000-150,000 per unit. Since the project itself grew out of a national scheme to create robots that could operate in Japan's many nuclear power plants, power utilities could be potential customers.

Humanoid for hire

Get your artificial receptionist/valet while supplies last. Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has announced that its humanoid communication robot Wakamaru is now available for rent.

Wakamaru is a sophisticated robot with vision, auditory and touch sensors. The rental project is aimed at businesses, hospitals and events, where the droid will do receptionist and guidance duties. Wakamaru can understand about 10,000 words, retrieve information or emails from the Net with its wireless LAN link, and do a mean upper-body aerobics routine.

The daily rental fee varies according to the lease length. For a lease of 1-5 days, it's 120,000 yen ($970), while 21-30 days is only 20,000 yen ($160). Shipping and management charges extra. The rentals will come with touch panels that can display venue maps and other info.

Oh, baby!

It had to happen - researchers from Osaka University and the Japan Science and Technology Agency have overseen the birth of a robot baby! The bouncing bundle of silicone joy is called CB2, from Child Robot with Biomimetic Body. The team, which includes android wizard Hiroshi Ishiguro and RoboCup cofounder Minoru Asada, created the robot so scientists could learn more about childhood development. There's a video here.

They say CB2 is designed to act like a 1- or 2-year-old human child, with a sophisticated array of air-servo motors beneath its silicone hide and visual, auditory and tactile sensors that allow it to react to its environment in a lifelike fashion. It reacts if tapped on the shoulder or presented with a plaything. Professor Asada was quoted by the Mainichi newspaper as saying ongoing research will focus on improving body functionality so the robot can be integrated into society. The team also wants to teach it how to walk and talk once the necessary software is developed. Another goal is to improve CB2 so that it can play with real children.

At 33 kg (72 lbs) and 130 cm (4'2"), baby is pretty big. In appearance it seems rather uncanny as well, and I believe some would say that this robot falls into the Uncanny Valley. CB2 seems half-alive and half-human, and doubtless will engender a negative response in many people.

But his daddy must be proud of him. Maybe Astro Boy is passing out cigars.