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Banryu, Robot Or Dragon?

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?

4 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