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Banryu, Robot Or Dragon?

Posted by timothy on from the dr.-no-was-way-ahead-of-this-guy dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "When Yoichi Takamoto, president of the small Japanese company Tmsuk, decided to build a robotic guard for your house, he was not able to use the familiar design of a dog. The idea was already taken by Sony, with its successful Aibo. Instead, he decided to develop the Banryu (or "guard dragon") robots. After all, nobody has ever seen a real dragon. So he was free to design it as he wished. The result is a scary robot which is 90 centimeters tall, weighs 35 kilograms, has more than 50 built-in sensors and can transmit an alarm to its master's cell phone if someone tries to invade the house. It doesn't come cheap. The price is about $18,000, but you can choose between five colors. The Asahi Shimbun tells us the story, while this overview includes several pictures of the frightening dragon." This is scary?

9 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Dragon? More like a, well... by Qweezle · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hey, it might be frightening if you were a little person.

    Or a baby.

    But I don't see the "dragon" resemblance...looks more to me like the robot from Lost in Space paired with 4 spider legs and a...well...I'll leave you to decide what the small, skinny, football shaped thing in the front is.

    I guess it is supposed to be a head. Now, isn't that an interesting coincidence...

    :-P

  2. Tachikoma? by Googo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just me, or do they kinda look like the tachikomas in Ghost in the shell.

  3. copyright? patent? by myowntrueself · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "he was not able to use the familiar design of a dog. The idea was already taken by Sony, with its successful Aibo."

    Does this mean that noone is ever going to be able to make a robot dog ever again (apart from with permission of and payment to Sony)??

    Or was he just concerned that the public would see it as an aibo lookalike?

    --
    In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
  4. Dragon? Then why does it say Dinosaur on the side? by johnny6vasquez · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Look at the flash slideshow and see for yourself...

    clicky

  5. Dinosaur? by bo0ork · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is this a case of engrish? Looking at some of the pictures in the flash animation, the text on the machine seems to be Banryu Neo Dinosaur. Or something very close to it.

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    Does everything include nothing?
  6. Tachikoma by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Me thinks he's been watching a little too much Ghost in the Shell:SAC. Seriously, doesn't this just look a LITTLE similar?

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  7. Call that a Dragon? by Un0r1g1nal · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Thats got to be the worst dragon I have ever seen. and for 18k? I would hardly say that people don't know what a dragon 'looks' like. There are many pictures/representations of what people perceive dragons to look like, and I would hazard a guess that a class of 5year olds could come up with a more 'realistic' design. The Mark Tilden guy that had the $100 dollar robots, now they were good. and they could run and wouldnt fall over etc. Now get a few of them hooked up with sensors and you would have a decent house guard, and I bet it would come under $200

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    If at first you DON'T succeed, Skydiving is NOT for YOU!!
  8. prior art. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Even if they have patented a "robot dog", the BBC would have something to say about it.

    Specifically: K9, the robot dog, in the 50-year old sci-fi series "Dr. Who".

  9. Just one thing... by PowerPill · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why does this thing need to be a robot? In order to justify the price? Just put these same sensors around your home and be done with it. It's akin to putting wheels on a Mac and charging $15K more! silly...