Tickle-me Tichno

Osaka robotics startup Vstone and Japan Remote Control Co. recently unveiled a kid-sized robot called Tichno that can play soccer, albeit slowly, balance on one leg and do calisthenics.

It came out a winner at the RoboCup Japan Open in Numazu last month.

At 130 cm tall (4.2'), Tichno is designed to be the same size as a third-grade Japanese elementary school student. It weighs 26 kg (56 lbs) has 22 degrees of mechanical freedom. He also has newly developed knee servo motors for exceptional stability. It has the same controller as Vstone's Robovie-X tabletop humanoid and can be manipulated with a gamepad.

Vstone plans to equip the bots with voice-recognition technology and sell them to companies as marketing gimmicks. They'll be available for rental at a daily fee of around $5,000.

Via Robot Watch

Asimo conducts Detroit Symphony

Fujitsu robot learns to cook

Fujitsu's humanoid robot HOAP-3 can do lots of nifty tricks like write its name and do acrobatics, but now it can add cooking to its repertoire.

Sylvain Calinon and other researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland have used imitation learning and probabilistic models to teach HOAP to help make omelets. Through direct human guidance, it learns to whip eggs, cut ham and grate cheese, focusing on the most essential part of each task and ignoring irrelevant events. It automatically adapts when a mixing bowl is moved.

As the longer video below shows, the silky-voiced HOAP recognizes objects through visual markers, and researchers answer its queries with a Wii remote. They also curse it when it screws up!

Foolishly, the researchers armed the robot with a sharp knife - but they survived the experiment.

The HOAP cooking show is part of the European Commission's Cogniron project to create helpful humanoids. HOAP, or Humanoid for Open Architecture Platform, was designed as a research platform and was marketed back in 2001.

Farmer hails strawberry-picking robot

Oldster farmers in Japan face increasingly tough times - few younger Japanese are willing to go into agriculture, and finding a successor to help out on the farm can be very difficult.

So robots are being developed as power suits - and as fruit pickers.

In Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, venture firm Romobility Youto is working on a robot that can perform the labor-intensive task of picking strawberries, and at least one farmer is enthusiastic, Nikkei Net reports.

The robot moves through a greenhouse scanning the strawberries with its color-sensitive camera eye.

When it detects a ripe one, its arm reaches out to cut the fruit and place it on a tray. Ambient light doesn't affect performance.

"Measuring... Oh, I found one. Starting to pick," Nikkei quoted the machine as saying. It's still pretty slow, picking only one berry every ten seconds.

Still, the farmer who owns the greenhouse was sanguine.

"Strawberry harvesting requires a great deal of both time and labor as delicate differences in color must be identified with the naked eye," Nikkei quoted him as saying. "If it is reasonably priced, I will consider buying one."

Romobility aims to commercialize the machine in two years.

There's a video if it in action here.

Source: Nikkei Net

Swinging robot video

Someone's been programming a KHR-series robot kit to swing, demonstrating how practical they can be!

Drinks maker giving away robots

Major Japanese brewer Suntory is giving away free robots - one hundred Roomba 570 vacuum cleaners from iRobot as well as a thousand of these cute little original tabletop bots it calls Zerobo. The giveaway is to promote the relaunch of Suntory's Dakara health drink.

Zerobo, named for the zero sugar, calories and salt in Dakara, is pretty nifty for a freebie. It uses infrared sensors and bumpers to detect obstacles and differences in surface levels. It can do light vacuuming in a random pattern like Roomba and respond to voice commands. You can Zerobo saying "Good morning" and other Japanese words on this site.

Another prize is a Dakara-shaped vacuum cleaner that fits in the palm of your hand. Powered through a USB connection, it can be used to clean your PC keyboard.

Toshiba unveils infrared bot

Toshiba has announced a prototype tabletop robot called Apri Poko that can operate household appliances like TVs via remote control. It's designed to be an all-purpose controller with cute looks.

When you operate appliances with infrared remotes, this 27 cm-tall cousin of Toshiba's ApriAlpha can detect the beams and learn to associate them with whatever they operate.

If it detects an unknown beam, it will ask you what it does, and then remember that function based on your voice response. After that, all you have to do is tell it to "Turn on the TV," and it will do the job itself.

It also has a head cam that helps it recognize users. Toshiba plans to commercialize Poko in the future, but no word yet on a date or price.

via RobotWatch

Metrobot squad infiltrates Seoul subway

South Koreans have drawn attention for plans to have a robot in every home by 2010. That faraway goal came a step closer today when the Seoul subway began deploying a small army of service robots called Metrobots to assist travelers.

The humanoid machines can provide information about subway fees, restaurants, tourist attractions and maps in Korean and English. Ten Metrobots are to work at City Hall and nine other transfer stations on the busy Metropolitan Subway system.

What with Japan's Asimo and Korea's Hubo in near-parallel development, I wonder whether this bit of one-upmanship in the robot arms race will see a flood of Wakamaru bots hitting the Tokyo underground.

Robot Detective!

Tonight Japan's channel BS2 aired a golden oldie from the vault: Robotto Keiji (Robot Detective), a short-lived 1973 tokusatsu series based on the manga by Shotaro Ishinomori about a robot crime-fighter. It predated Robocop by more than a decade.

Protagonist K is a quite a dandy for a humanoid, sporting a beret, yellow shoes and a red jacket. He drives a flying car and packs a gun mounted in his chest, handy when tussling with the Badou crime syndicate.

K fights ridiculous evil robots like Lockerman, a walking locker, and Springman...um, a giant spring. There's a great rundown of the rogue's gallery this fansite.

The funny thing about tough guy K, though, is that in times of distress he calls out "Mazaa!" (mother) and runs off to a giant mobile fortress in the shape of a goddess for repairs. His creator is a female scientist, Dr. Kirishima, who fixes him up in the fortress.

Mother complexes, human-machine relations, bargain-basement tokusatsu special effects: Robotto Keiji is great fodder for Japanologists of every stripe.

A steed for Asimo?

BigDog, an amazing robot from Boston Dynamics billed as the "most advanced quadruped robot on Earth," needs a master. I can think of none better than the most advanced humanoid robot on Earth, Asimo.

Natch, since this beast isn't Japanese-designed, it's pretty terrifying. And natch, it's funded by DARPA. It could eat Sony's lovable Aibo for lunch. BigDog's locomotion AI software is impressive and it runs on a gasoline engine! It's designed "with the goal of creating robots that have rough-terrain mobility that can take them anywhere on Earth that people and animals can go."

New Aibo rumor groundless: Sony

The blogosphere has been swirling with rumors that Sony is set to revive its much-loved robot dog Aibo next year with a PlayStation-compatible version.

Sony put Aibo to sleep in 2006 when it shut down its robot entertainment business. Earlier this year, Kotaku.com featured an interview with Aibo co-designer Masaya Matsuura that quoted him as saying, "The engineers behind the Aibo are doing the PS3. We are talking about making something like the new Aibo."

Then Stuff magazine apparently published a photo of the new "Aibo PS" in development and alleged it would be compatible with the PS3, PSP and WiFi. Numerous sites like Engaget and Gizmodo repeated the news.

Sounds great, but it seems no one bothered to call Sony to check.

Well, I did. The company's Tokyo headquarters says the rumor is entirely groundless and it is "definitely not" working on a new Aibo. The Sony spokesperson laughed when he saw the pic from Stuff magazine. (I think that pup looks way too nasty to have been designed by a Japanese company like Sony. It's just not kawaii.)

The whole thing smacks of a hoax. Or hype that got out of hand.
That's Internet journalism for you!

Drinks at Asimo Cafe

I went to Honda's Tokyo showroom and had the pleasure of being served drinks by its humanoid robot Asimo.

Guests sit at tables in the office lobby equipped with touch-panel displays. There are two Asimos standing by at their charging stations. When they receive an order, they whir to life and bustle about like human waiters.

I selected green tea. Asimo carried out the order flawlessly - receiving a drinks tray from a human staffer, carrying to my table and depositing it, then bowing courteously and moving off. Other guests bowed to Asimo in return.

Perhaps the coolest thing was that it was largely business as usual at the office. Executives were coming and going, receptionists were greeting visitors and not too many people took much notice in the fact that there were two robots waltzing around the room serving tea and coffee.

Honda has always said it wants Asimo to be part of the everyday environment, and this was its most convincing demo yet.

Asimo gets smarter, can work in groups

Just in time for the holidays, here comes the Asimo swarm.

Honda Motor has continued to evolve its humanoid robot Asimo and has equipped it with new smarts that lets it work in groups and for one to take over when another is recharging.

Asimo can now operate in an environment with people as well as other Asimos. Robots working together will wirelessly share data such as battery levels and the closest unit to a given task. Each works autonomously based on the networked information.

Another new AI function allows Asimo to estimate the path of people walking toward it based on their speed and direction and to avoid them by stepping back if necessary.

And when Asimo's battery level falls below a certain level, it will return to its recharging station and power up.

This marks the first Asimo upgrade since 2005. Having solved most major engineering challenges in building a bipedal robot, Honda has been focusing on Asimo's AI skills.

Check out the Honda videos here.

The latest version will be serving refreshments at Honda's Tokyo HQ this month and next. Eggnog, anyone?

Fiddle me this

Toyota Motor has unveiled its latest awesome robot musician - a violin player. The Toyota Partner Robot is an addition to the automaker's lineup of gigging droids that includes drummers and trumpet players.

The violinist did a rendition of Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" in a display that was dexterous but a tad, er, robotic.

Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe told reporters the Partner robot will have a big role in helping take care of old people as Japan's population ages rapidly. The firm's robot staff of 100 will be doubled and a new robot research center will be built, he added.

Yet Watanabe admitted Toyota is still exploring possible business models for its humanoid robots.

Robots need to be successful products to have any real impact on everyday life. While the violinist is a nice engineering feat, getting it to tidy up a room and do the laundry would be a real breakthrough.

Robots can be weak, too

Tatsuya Matsui is an architect and designer with a passion for robots. His studio Flower Robotics has produced some striking automatons like Posy, a cute little wedding flower girl. Others include a black-clad humanoid clown. His robots are cute but also a little scary.

Matsui's robot aesthetic is partly based on the notion that robots can share weakness and fragility with human beings, and that will endear them to us. That's why he thinks flowers are a metaphor for robots. Cyberdyne Systems this ain't.

He has also created a mannequin robot called Palette that can can swing its arms gracefully to enhance the appeal of clothing placed on it. Palette has already modeled designs by Hanae Mori and Louis Vuitton in Tokyo. Palette is also equipped with a vision sensor so it can mimic the gestures of passersby. The exhibition, at Mito Art Tower in Ibaraki Prefecture through Jan. 27, offered visitors iPods displaying what Palette sees (photo, below).

Matsui has also worked on Pino, a cute little robot used as a humanoid research platform, and SIG, a head used for robot hearing research at Kyoto University. I wrote an article on the latter for Scientific American that's archived here.

Tatsuya seems more concerned with robot design than functionality, but his Flower Robotics is only in its infancy. Meanwhile, he's been designing airliners and swanky buildings in Ginza. Matsui is quite a Renaissance Man.

There's more on the Tatsuya Matsui Flower Robotics exhibition in my Japan Times article here.

Sanyo rover checks for house cracks

A new Sanyo Electric Co. robot can check for cracks in the foundations of homes by crawling through the narrow, inaccessible space under the floorboards.

The treaded robot has a video camera that relays real-time images to a remote location. It can automatically avoid obstacles in its path and can be remotely controlled with a computer mouse.

While the bot would be useful for checking for temblor damage in quake-prone Japan, Sanyo says it will promote the use of homes for longer periods, which a new law calls for to save on resources. Japanese residential buildings are typically torn down after only a few decades of use. Sanyo hopes to sell 1,000 units annually of the robot, which will retail for less than 1 million yen ($8,800), in five years.

Via Kyodo News

Toyota to sell Partner Robots

Toyota Motor has marked the 70th anniversary of its founding by announcing a long-term business plan that calls for the commercialization of its humanoid Partner Robots for jobs like housekeeping and nursing support.

The Toyota Global Vision 2020 plan sees robots as a core business for the leading automaker, which also plans to make hybrid technology available for its entire fleet of vehicles.

There were no details on the timing of the commercialization of the Partner Robots, which debuted as a robot orchestra at the 2005 Aichi Expo in Japan.

Via Mainichi Shimbun

Smallest humanoid a chip off the old block

I-Sobot, a new toy from Takara Tomy, has been launched as the world's smallest humanoid robot in production, certified by Guinness World Records. It's a 165 mm (6.5"), remote-controlled droid that walks, punches, kicks, does gymnastics and plays music. Its interesting features include 17 servo units, a gyro sensor for balance and the ability to recognize 10 voice commands. Not bad for $350.

I-Sobot also has a spoken repertoire of over 200 sound effects, words and cute asides like "I could go for an ice-cold can of STP." Funny, but its ancestor Omnibot from the mid-1980s (i-Sobot's name is actually "Omnibot 17μ i-Sobot") seemed to have more style, at least in the TV ads. He even makes a pass at a vacuum cleaner.

Rocket punch!

More on the ongoing Great Robot Exhibition in Tokyo: it has lots of cool exhibits like anime super robot Mazinger Z, above. Check out my Wired News photo gallery - I also have an article in the Japan Times about it and the related show Asimo show.

Humanoid learns to point, bow

A full-size humanoid robot that can communicate with natural human gestures and demonstrate some AI chops has been developed by Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT).

Researchers at the institute's Spoken Language Communication Group say it is the first robot in the world with nonverbal communication skills and multipurpose, high-level functions. The bipedal machine, which stands 155 cm (5 feet) tall, uses its artificial vision system to recognize objects in 3D and learn human gestures such as pointing and bowing, as well as their meaning when performed by others.

The scientists compare this to the way a child learns to communicate. No word yet on what the tin man calls itself.

NICT says it hopes the bot, which looks like an early Asimo prototype, will be used as an everyday caregiver for elderly people in the future as well as a helper robot in natural disasters.

Via Nikkei Net, NICT

Major robot show opens in Tokyo

Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science has just opened a big show entitled "The Great Robot Exhibition: Karakuri, Anime and the Latest Robots," running through Jan. 27 in Ueno Park, Tokyo.

I attended the press preview and was impressed. The organizers have gathered many of the best Japanese robots out there today, and have extensive displays on the background of robot development such as karakuri clockwork dolls and anime icons like Astro Boy.

If you're in town, "Dai Robotto Haku" is worth catching. It's a great retrospective on Japanese robot culture. Highlights include a wall of one hundred "Master Grade" Gundam plastic models, an original 19th-century karakuri archer doll by Tanaka Hisashige and a new stage show by Honda's Asimo, the premier humanoid robot.

If you can't make the exhibition, you might want to buy Loving the Machine instead!

Back-seat driver now front-seat robot

One of the wildest concept cars being shown off at the 40th Tokyo Motor Show starting Oct. 26th is the Nissan Pivo 2 electric car, and it has a few twists. For starters, its wheels can rotate 90 degrees, allowing the battery-powered vehicle to be driven sideways. The cabin can also rotate a full 360 degrees. Those functions obviate parallel parking and the need for a reverse gear. But the Pivo's best trick? It has a robot navigator that speaks English and Japanese.

Nestled in the dashboard, the Pivo bot is none other than NEC's cute PaPeRo, minus its body. PaPeRo was originally conceived as a childcare robot adept at entertaining tots with songs and games, but it has since diversified into wine tasting, and now a Japanese version of KITT. I shudder to think what's next.

This "Robotic Agent" can sense the driver's mental state by analyzing voice and face image data, according to the automaker. Its voice-activated navigation and information system is also designed to soothe stressed drivers through small talk. But for those who like to pound the dashboard in moments of road rage, this "starry-eyed robot-monkey head," as Motortrend described it, might make a convenient punching bag. Fortunately PaPeRo is made of tough plastic!

Gundam-mad bureaucrat busted

A Japanese civil servant in the agriculture ministry was recently reprimanded for ignoring his duties and making 260 edits to the Japanese-language Wikipedia entry on Mobile Suit Gundam, the super-popular animated robot sci-fi series.

"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam," ministry official Tsutomu Shimomura was quoted by AP as saying. He added that other bureaucrats had also modified the Gundam page, and that access to Wikipedia has been blocked from the ministry.

Gundam is a sprawling saga about space colonists who do battle in giant robots. It's also a merchandising phenomenon in Japan. Bandai, the country's largest toymaker, owes most of its revenue to the brand, especially the robot model kits that have sold over 360 million units since 1980.

Robot Museum, we hardly knew ye

Sad news for robot fans: operator Gyrowalk has announced it will close the Robot Museum in Nagoya at the end of the month due to lack of visitors. It was opened a year ago on the strength of the popularity of the robots at the 2005 Aichi Expo, held nearby.

The museum was busy every time I went there. But visitor numbers did not meet the annual 400,000 expected by the company. High overheads were probably a big factor - the place has lots of staff and is located in the expensive Sakae downtown area in Nagoya. It was an excellent museum, though, and had a large retail area, event space and exhibitions gallery featuring a colorful robot chronology wall, rare SF magazines and real robots.

Gyrowalk also runs the RoboCafe robot store in Osaka, but that has shut its doors for the time being. Last I heard it was to reopen following renovations but the closure of the Robot Museum probably means that won't happen.

Gyrowalk's woes show how hard it is to transform robot dreams into profit-making reality. U.S. robot firms like iRobot have generally been more successful at marketing non-industrial robots (like Roomba) than the Japanese because they are so focused on practical applications instead of fantasy. Still, as the first of its kind in the world the museum was a great achievement and a fine tribute to an amazing technology. It's a pity that it went so soon.

Robot dance, robot recyle

This rocking public service announcement from the Japan Advertising Council and NHK features Hiroshima J-pop trio Perfume lending their new single "Polyrhythm" to a good cause - recycling. They seem to be dancing a variation of The Robot along with some humanoid-like backup dancers covered with plastic bottles (known in Japan as PET bottles). The voiceover says "For tomorrow, let's start today." Judging by their singles to date, these techno idols seem keen on mechatronic sounds. The "Polyrhythm" video is online here.

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!

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