thestar.com.my: Business News

Creator of robotic dog sees robots becoming partners for humans

TOKYO (AP) – Sony’s robot master remakes man’s best friend in plastic and microchips and hopes to imbue his machines with a sort of soul, their autonomy showing us something of our own minds.

But Toshi Doi, the father of Sony’s popular robotic dog, AIBO, doesn’t see a future in which robots equal humans. He sees them evolving into important partners. And he believes AIBO, which means partner, is a first step in that direction.

[…]

SONY :: AIBO :: New Colours

To celebrate the second anniversary of the launch of the 1st generation AIBO ERS-110 on May 11th 1999, we have limited edition colours for ERS-210.

They will be available in a choice of three metallic iridescent colours that change like a rainbow when you view them in different lights.

The visor has the same effect. These new AIBOs really look like gems!

The anniversary models will only be available for a limited period while stocks last.

[to order…]

GENERAL :: MAG :: TIME asia

Japan: Gizmo Nation

Although technology brought the country to its knees during World War II, for the past 50 years Japanese have embraced the notion that salvation is to be found through technical innovation–and the world has benefited from their ingenuity

• EXCLUSIVE! A pop-up manga cartoon titled Maruichi’s Tea Time designed specially for TIME by popular artist Nozomi Yanahara

• Timeline: A look at the rise of technology in Japan (photo essay)

• My Robot, My Friend: Japanese love not only to give their machines names, but also to make them pals

• Viewpoint: Let no one say these citizens are automatons

• Birth of a Robot: TIME takes an exclusive inside look at the design, construction and assembly of “Pino” (photo essay)

• Land of the Rising Gadget: At times, this can seem like an almost fully automated society (photo essay)

• The 10 Smartest Machines: These whiz-bang doo-dads are just around the corner; plus, the 5 dumbest head-scratching devices (photo essay)

• Lonely Inventors: Surprisingly, the country doesn’t always reward its most creative scientific minds

• The Old Ways: Some tasks are still done better by humans

• Local Talent: Ota ward remakes itself

• Cellul-Oids: Japanese cinema is full of mechanical monsters, mayhem and monkey business

• On the Boards: An interactive Shakespeare

• Essay: Ryu Mura

GENERAL NEWS :: TIME ASIA :: Man’s Best

Makota Ishida for TIME

Firms like TMSUK are promoting devices, such as this maid robot, to serve humans.





In a land where people make pets of their gadgets, the root looks set to become the companion of the future

By TIM LARIMER Tokyo



Japanese personalize their machines. They give names to their office PCs and printers, their factory robots, their cell phones, CD players and Game Boys. Such playful intimacy with inanimate objects made of acrylic, silicon and liquid-crystal displays may seem unnatural. But electronic devices are so vital to Japanese lives that they become virtual family members. Indeed, many people spend more time with machines than they do with their relatives. Just watch a schoolgirl on a subway train with her cell phone, checking voice messages, typing in e-mail responses, downloading her horoscope. Her cell phone is her best friend.

The Japanese tendency to anthropomorphize machines is critical to understanding their embrace of technology in the postwar era. As a result of considerable cultural and spiritual indoctrination from educators, artists, writers and the government, the machine in Japan has become an ally, a friend, a partner. And what a loyal companion it has been during the past 50 years. Making machines turned Japan into an exporting giant. Perfecting them made Japan the center of the electronics industry.

[…]

BOOK :: ThinkGeek :: Robo Sapiens
Evolution Of A New Species
Visit the book’s companion web site: robosapiens.mit.edu
“This is one of the most mind-stretching–and frightening–books I’ve ever read. It’s also a tour de force of photography: the images reveal a whole new order of creation about to come into existence. No one who has any interest in the future can afford to miss it.”
— Sir Arthur C. Clarke

Around the world, scientists and engineers are participating in a high-stakes race to build the first intelligent robot. Many robots already exist–automobile factories are full of them. But the new generation of robots will be something else: smart machines that act like living creatures. When they are brought into existence, science fiction will have become fact.
What will happen then?
[…]

GENERAL :: FR :: Transfert
La famille robot
par Sébastien Gesell
mis en ligne le 7 mai 2001

Tomy va lancer au Japon une nouvelle gamme de robots jouets, les Dinkies, véritable petite famille interactive.

La famille Dinkie de Tomy s´apprête à envahir le Japon. Les Dinkies sont des spationautes robots, chaque membre de la famille étant doté de quelques fonctions interactives. Ces petites créatures de 12 cm de haut sont équipées de minuscules écrans à cristaux liquides sur lesquels s´affichent diverses expressions et manifestations d´humeur. Bien entendu, ces robots communiquent entre eux (à l´instar des animaux Poochi et Miaou-Chi de Tiger Electronics) et grandiront ensemble en totale communion. Tomy a même prévu des animaux de compagnie pour cette gentille famille ! Les Dinkies seront disponibles au Japon dès le mois de juillet pour environ 200 francs pièce. Le début d´une nouvelle saga à succès ?

SONY :: AIBO :: Sony empowers Aibo pet robot to read e-mail

By Paul Kallender , EE Times

URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20010507S0059

TOKYO — Acknowledging that its prodigal robot pet did little more than talk back and eat batteries every couple of hours, Sony Corp. on Monday (May 7) unveiled software that will enable its Aibo robots to read e-mail messages and Web pages.

The company’s Aibo Messenger applications software gives Sony’s two-year-old robot the ability to inform owners that e-mail has arrived, to read the contents of a message, and to convey text-based information such as news and weather from home pages, Sony said.

The software is delivered on a CD-ROM and is uploaded onto the PC of an Aibo owner. The software converts e-mail or Web files into sound files, which can be played through the robot’s audio speakers when activated by a key word spoken to the dog, a Sony spokeswoman said.

“Some people have commented that Aibo wasn’t very useful and asked why it didn’t do e-mail,” the spokeswoman said. “Now we’re sort of taking it another step; now it can do something.”

[…]

GENERAL :: news.com.au – Display Story Page Cyborg couple

LONDON: Surgeons are preparing to create the first husband and wife cyborgs.

In science-fiction, a cyborg is a human being whose body has been “enhanced” by technical means.

Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at Reading University, and his wife, Irena, will have 5cm silicon chips implanted in their arms just above the elbow.
The chips will be surgically connected to nerve fibres to see if the pair can communicate sensation and movement by thought alone.

GENERAL :: ZDnet :: Robots: Our helpers or replacements?
Robots: Our helpers or replacements?

Just one word: robots. That’s the next big boom being buzzed about by the world’s leading technology visionaries.

“In the last millennium, we came to rely on machines. In the new millennium, we will become our machines,” Rodney Brooks, director at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Fujitsu professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said at the Association of Computing and Machinery’s Beyond Cyberspace conference in San Jose last month.

[…]

Scientists and engineers in laboratories across Europe, Japan and the US are building so-called “robo sapiens” that can navigate the corridors of today’s office buildings and perform the tasks of an office assistant.

[…]

Throughout Japan, service robots are functioning as guards in warehouses, delivering trays of food in hospitals and carrying documents from one office to another. Honda Motor is investing heavily in practical humanoid robots that operate household switches, turn doorknobs and perform tasks at tables.

The Japan Robot Association estimates that by next year, some 11,000 service robots will be deployed, with 65 percent of them in hospitals and nursing homes. The association also projects that by 2005, health-care robots will be a US$250 million market, with a possibility of growing to a US$1 billion market by 2010.

[…]

GENERAL :: TIME.com: TIME Magazine — How ‘Bout Them Bots?

How ‘Bout Them Bots?

BY ANITA HAMILTON

They’ve trolled antarctica for meteorites. they’ve scoured the Titanic for sunken treasure. They’ve built cars and computers and helped perform open-heart surgery. Now robots are homing in on the final frontier: your living room. Long the stuff of Star Wars fantasies and little-boy dreams, robots for real folks are here at last.

At the annual Toy Fair in New York City last week, the bots were everywhere. Foot-long bug bots crept across exhibit floors. Two-legged baby bots took their first toddler steps. A testy and surprisingly lifelike dinobot snapped its mechanical jaws.

[…]