Dancing bot rocks out in Wired vid

With Tokyo in an intense heat wave, there's nothing like a dancing robot to lift one's spirits from the humid doldrums. This great video from Wired and my roboticist pal Marek Michalowski features the "creature-like" robot Keepon developed at Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology's (NICT) Kyoto research center. Developer Hideki Kozima created Keepon as a simple social communication robot with reactive and emotive abilities. Michalowski programmed him. There's more info about Keepon here.

Keepon is also interesting in that he exhibits unpredictable behavior based on sensor input data. Michalowski explained his jig to me thus:

For Keepon, "tempo" is an abstract property that can be perceived in lots of different modalities: sound, vision, accelerometer movement...when he perceives periodic events, he figures out the tempo and synchronizes to that. But his dancing "style" is an emergent property of randomly changing dance "parameters" rather than a scripted set of movements.

Keepon seems right out of Sesame Street or the Muppet Show to me, but this video proves his street cred. I also noticed that it features famous spots in Tokyo such as Tokyo Big Sight, the Kaminarimon Gate of Sensoji Temple, Akihabara's Radio Center Building and Chuo-dori street, Shibuya crossing, and the east side of Shinjuku Station. The final sequence with dancing kit robots like Manoi was filmed at robot retailer and educator RT Corp., also in Akihabara. Wired took liberties with the Tokyo backgrounds, inserting its logo into the visual chaos of neon and concrete.

Super kawaii Keepon rocks. He'll be at the Wired NextFest in LA next month.

Giant robot helps out in quake-hit Niigata

Robot maker tmsuk's giant rescue bot t-53 Enryu is on the scene in Niigata to help clear debris following the massive earthquake that devastated the prefecture last month, killing 11 and destroying over 10,000 buildings. It's the first time that the recently upgraded, scaled-down rescue robot has been dispatched to a disaster area to aid recovery efforts.

The 3-ton treaded monster can lift up to 100 kg (220 lbs) with each arm and has multiple joints and cameras that allow operators finer manipulation than, say, a backhoe. Arm movements have been improved to correspond with operator motions, so people in the cockpit can "move" debris themselves through Enryu. In that sense, the t-53 is like a stripped-down Gundam sci-fi robot.

Via Robot Watch

Do androids dream of old age?

My birthday is April 10, 2017. How long do I live?
-Leon, Blade Runner


What happens when androids get old? Well, it ain't pretty. Basically, they melt.

Of course, "old" comes pretty fast in robotics. Your gorgeous synthetic Actroid companion may be the stuff of your dreams today - but her skin will start to liquefy in about a year.

Before long she'll end up dismembered and rotting in a cluttered basement, like this first-generation Repliee I found at Dr. Hiroshi "Gitchang" Okuno's lab at Kyoto University. When I saw her in such a fallen state, I couldn't help but feel sympathetic.

The Actroid and Repliee series of androids developed in Japan have silicone skin. An insider at developer Kokoro Co. tells me that one of the biggest challenges with Actroids is that their skin decays and dirties quickly. It has to be replaced every year. The process is long and tricky.

The Tokyo-based company is looking into ways to make the skin more durable so Actroid's beauty will linger longer. This will be an important technical obstacle to overcome as androids are expected to start working in everyday jobs like receptionists in Japan, which faces a crippling population decline.

The skin is most prone to melting around the android's hands, arms and legs. The second photo shows Repliee's gnarled hand, which appeared to be slowly melting when I picked it up. Her torso was on a chair, and her legs were on the floor. Her wig was falling off - she was a mess.

Being the Eve of the Repliee series, she needs a more fitting resting place than a lab basement. Maybe the Robot Museum in Nagoya can find a spot for her, a place where she can be beautiful forever. But first she needs a new skin!