Good listeners

Many thanks to those who attended my Loving the Machine reading at Good Day Books in Tokyo recently. I was honored to participate in their Booknotes lecture series - it has hosted such old Japan hands as Donald Keene, Donald Richie and Edward Seidensticker as well as many others. To the right is Good Day's Steve Kott, laughing at the prospect of being replaced by a robot in the future.

Meanwhile, I have an article on how to make robots better listeners in this month's Scientific American. Kyoto University Professor Hiroshi "Gitchang" Okuno is building robots that can listen to three people talking simultaneously and understand them, addressing a fundamental AI problem known as the cocktail party effect. Check it out at your local newsstand!

P.S.: I'll be speaking at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan at the end of August.

Motoman superannuates you

Think you're good at sorting packages? Try going head to head with Motoman. It can sort about a thousand packages an hour - better than most humans. I bet the hapless worker in the background of this photo envies its chops.

In a tie-up between robot producer Yaskawa Electric and distribution machinery maker Hokusho Co., Yaskawa's Motoman DA-10 humanoid robot has been put to work at a Hokusho factory to demonstrate its package-sorting abilities.

Motoman has seven-axis arms and can perform simultaneous tasks like toting objects and tightening bolts. I've seen the DA-10 at a robotics trade show in Tokyo - the head is just a cosmetic accessory added for fun. In fact Yaskawa staff dolled up their humanoid pals with scarves, much the bemusement of onlookers. Here, Motoman is demonstrating its article-handling functions - it can work in close proximity to people and step in when they're not around. It sorts packages by reading their bar codes. But this strikes me as pretty old-school compared to new automated distribution technologies like RFID. I think Motoman should run for office instead.

Via Pink Tentacle

Meet BJ, son of Aibo

Kawasaki-based iXs Research has a new toy that's perfect for Aibo and Doctor Who fans out there: a dog-bot that looks like a cross between Sony's discontinued hound and K-9, the Doctor's companion.

"BJ," seen as a potential successor to Aibo, is designed for robotics research and robot sport tournaments such as RoboCup, where Aibos play soccer.

It has 16 joints in total, an infrared distance sensor, accelerometer, and paw sensors. It can also connect to the Internet and can be programmed with a variety of motions. It has memory stick, USB and other ports. Weighing 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs), BJ is slated to go on sale around the world this fall for around $4,800.

via Robot Watch

Ghost in the machine

These creepy X-rays are imaginary robot skeletons that tmsuk, one of Japan's more playful robot manufacturers, is offering as wallpaper on its website. They feature the tmsukIV humanoid robot and the Banryu T73S robot watchdog. A caption in the wallpaper reads: "Robot-like people cannot make robots."

Here be dragons

I was in the port of Yokosuka southwest of Tokyo recently and dropped by the new Yokosuka Museum of Art, where installation artist Kenji Yanobe's robotic artwork Giant Torayan is on display. Torayan is a fire-breathing sculpture that's the size of a small house.

See how small the museum attendant is in this photo. She's doing the Japanese "X" sign because you're not allowed to take pictures. The huge funnel-like object behind Torayan emits a deafening steamship blast in case you're not intimidated enough by the baby-faced bot. The spikes on the back of its head are a direct reference to comic icon Astro Boy.

Torayan can also move its head and arms a bit. As it says in the ad above, a pyrotechnics display will be held July 14 at the museum, which is about 35 minutes by bus from JR Yokosuka Station. The sculpture is part of a larger Yanobe installation that includes an army of little men wearing yellow Hazmat suits, some riding a ferris wheel. It's all very surreal.

There's a video of Torayan spewing flame and jamming with Tokyo synth band Mas here.