Author Archives: Ogen

Robots Can Learn Much From High-Tech Playthings

By MICHEL MARRIOTT

t the annual Toy Fair last month, the huge annual show in New York where the toy industry promotes its newest creations, robots were everywhere.

Tiger Electronics, a division of Hasbro, showed off no less than two dozen interactive robotic toys that it plans to unleash next holiday season. They include a free-ranging turtle and other automatons for the fish bowl, as well as a gleaming, robotic baby that coos while responding to touch, sight and sound. There were plenty of robotic toys from other manufacturers, too: more dogs than you can throw a stick at, joined by cats, birds, mice, bugs, dinosaurs and even potted plants.
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But robotic toys, experts say, may help usher in the day, in the not too distant future, when more practical, utilitarian robots are common around the house. The clever use in toys of microprocessors, memory chips, sensors, servo motors and advanced software, like the sort that makes voice recognition possible, is pointing the way to vastly more advanced robots that can work with humans without intimidating them.

“Toys are just the tip of the iceberg in what is coming,” said Wayne Walter, a founder of the Laboratory for Cooperative, Autonomous Microsystems at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

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Personal Robot PaPeRo

It’s smaller, lighter and processes much improved performance capabilities.

It’s a stand-alone personal robot!

Enhanced conversation capability

Capability as a research platform

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NEC :: Personal Robot PaPeRo
Papero Specifications

height: 385mm

width: 248mm

depth: 245mm

weight: 5.0kg

battery duration: 2 – 3 hours

battery charge: 2 – 3 hours

number of recognized phrases: about 650 phrases

number of speech phreses: about 3000 phrases

[input]

eyes: 2 CCD cameras

ears: 3 microphones for sound direction detection

1 uni-directional microphone for speech recognition

patting sense switch: senses your tap or press on the head

stroking sensorsenses your stroke on the head

ultra-sonic sensors: 5 sensors around its body (front: 3, rear: 2)

floor sensor: detect a hole

lift sensor: detect being lifted

[output]

feet: 2 drive wheels (front)

1 free wheel (rear)
max. speed : 20cm/s
head: up-down, left-right

sound: 2 speakers

face: 8 LEDs in eyes

9 LEDs in mouth

2 LEDs in cheek

2 LEDs in ears

[other interfaces]

remote control signal transmitter: transmit TV remote control signal

video and audio output: connection to TV

Internet access: wireless modem connection

Personal Robot PaPeRo

In January 1997, we at NEC commenced the ‘Personal Robot Project’ to seek out the possibilities of developing personal robots for use in the home. After much research and development, we produced our first generation prototype, ‘Personal Robot R100’ in July 1999. R100 with its ability to recognize people, understand voice commands and communicate with its users gathered much public attention as R100 showed many new possibilities in many aspects of our lives.

But we didn’t stop with R100; we pursued in our research focusing on the interaction between human and robots and completed the next generation prototype, ‘Personal Robot PaPeRo’ in January 2001.


The name ‘PaPeRo’ is taken from ‘Partner type Personal Robot’.
We plan to conduct further research and development based on NEC’s new robot ‘PaPeRo’.[…]

AI :: Tomy develops new robot that can hold conversation
Tomy develops new robot that can hold conversation

Toymaker Tomy Co. said Wednesday it has developed a robot with artificial intelligence that is capable of recognizing words in a conversational context.

Tomy will put the robot, known as memoni, on sale for 18,000 yen in the summer after displaying it at a toy fair to be held in Tokyo later this month.

When it hears a sentence, the robot can pick up two words and respond accordingly, Tomy said.
If, for example, a woman says, “I’ll go out on a date with him tomorrow,” the robot is capable of recognizing the words “him” and “date” and confirm the man’s name or respond with a question such as, “Where will you go?”

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TIMEasia.com | GizmoLand! | Miracle Of Life | 5/1/2000 – 5/8/2000 Miracle Of Life

A Japanese research team gives TIME an exclusive inside look at the birth of “Pino,”a robot child

By TIM LARIMER Tokyo

For six months, the researchers on scientist Hiroaki Kitano’s robotics team in Tokyo had been trying to create a baby robot. On April 18 they finally succeeded, and they gave TIME exclusive access to both the gestation and the “birth.”After putting 35 exterior polyurethane panels-painted snow white and apple green-around the approximately 150 mechanical pieces that make the robot run, they stood back and admired their handiwork: a 75 cm tall, 8 kg bundle of joy that could already walk-gingerly-and kick a soccer ball.

Kitano’s baby has 29 motors that power one body movement each – a bending elbow, for example, or a flexing knee. Later the robot will be able to respond to voice commands, recognize faces and, the ultimate goal, play soccer. Its name? “Pino” – short for Pinocchio, the wooden doll who wanted to be a boy.

Robotics: Robots said more useful than pets

Japan Times Mar 12 2001 3:31PM ET

Kyodo News

Electronic robots are gradually becoming familiar companions among some Japanese families and hospital patients, offering them entertainment and peace of mind.

AIBO offers its appendage to an unidentified women at a Tokyo department store.

The robots vary from those that look like puppies to humanoid ones that can walk leisurely on two legs, pour wine into a glass or even express emotions.

While not all of them have made inroads into Japanese households, Atsuo Takanishi, a professor at Waseda University’s faculty of science and technology, reckons that in the future, robots will emerge that are more useful than pets.

Robots are gaining popularity probably because they can be kept in apartments and condominiums that are off-limits to pets. They also do not require any exercise or food.

Sony Corp.’s line of AIBO pet robots — modeled on dogs and lion cubs and equipped with built-in electronic functions to mimic sorrow, anger, surprise, fear and hatred — have been getting favorable reactions from their owners.
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