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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?
The price is about $18,000, but you can choose between five colors.
Oh, 5 colors! That explains it.
Buckethead
"This is scary"
I don't know about you but the price scared me plenty.
dragon? Don't they mean cow? Seriously now, does this resemble a dragon more or a cow?
and it needs a flamethrower.
Hey, it might be frightening if you were a little person.
:-P
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...
Even with 50 sensors and a system to read and process the data, how do they come up with $18,000? If it could walk up stairs, right itself, etc, I might understand, but it doesn't look that way. I can cobble together a PC, appropriate sensor receivers (BTW, what do they need 50 sensors for? Every joint?), and some software for a heck of a lot less than that. It wouldn't look as cool, but it would do the same thing.
Just imagine a beowulf cluster of these. Just like the DnD movie! *schivers* I can't believe I watched that horrible movie...
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Just me, or do they kinda look like the tachikomas in Ghost in the shell.
This seems to be a hairsbreadth from Fido in Snow Crash.
My God, you're right! The very next thing is going to be killer nuclear-powered cyborg dogs!
"Hairsbreadth" from Rat Things, heh.
Bitchslapped. Neat.
Eighteen grand for a humidifier with legs? I've seen scarier Legos.
This guy has the technology to make robots, and the most useful application he could think of was a "dragon" to guard your home? When are they going to come out with things we actually care about, like virtual sex androids? I think there would be a huge market for those babies.
Considering that the word Dragon in Japan is Ryu, which is also used in reference to Dinosaurs. In Asia, the words for dinosaurs are also dragon. It makes much more sense that the ryu used in this case is referring the robot as a dinosaur, not a dragon.
Besides, it looks like a Stegosaurus to me.
"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.
Robots were cool. They were either really smart tins on wheels (R2D2) that shot a lightsaber your way in times of need, golden droids that looked like a person (C3P0) and could speak 3 billion dialects, or huge kick ass killing machines with gatling guns (ED209). In short, robots were cool and I wanted one.
However, this story has me convinced that all we're gonna end up with is fscking Muffet from Galactica... Thanks Far Eastern robot wizard dudes... Thanks very much!
Look at the flash slideshow and see for yourself...
clicky
You forgot the disclaimers:
Treasure Horde not included.
Wings sold separately.
Vocal Chords sold separately.
Fire Drivers sold separately.
Destruction of nearby villages and other damages caused are responsibility of purchaser.
Only Royal Standard Crown Gold Pieces accepted, buyer pays entire sum up front.
Dragon may mate with cows.
Resulting Cowragons may spread mad cowragon disease.
Mad Cowragon disease vaccine sold separately.
telemarketer: Hi, I'm calling from ADC Home Security systems, how are you today, Mr. Hood?
me: Not to good.
telemarketer: Excellent, We are calling because we giving a way 20 free robotic house-gaurding dragons to people in your neighborhood and you have been selected to receive one. This dragon, an $18,000 value, will guard your home when your gone, perform CPR if you choke, or call the police if there's a fire. Plus, it comes in your choice of five colors. This is yours for free when you sign up for our $2995 a month service and monitoring plan for five years. That's less than a hundred dollars a day.
me: That's not free.
telemarketer: Yes, but surely you can't put a price on your family's safety.
me: I wouldn't have thought so either, but here we are.
telemarketer: But this robotic dragon is the greatest technological marvel since the beginning of time. It also can scorch intruders into charcoal and catch you if you fall down the stairs. Is there any reason you aren't interested?
me: I already have a security system, actually.
telemarketer: May I ask what brand?
me: It's a hedge maze in the front yard.
telemarketer: Really, does it work?
me: I haven't seen the mailman in a while, so I guess so.
telemarketer: Hmmm. *click*
Unknown host pong.
To disarm it, just throw lots of water on it. "Bow Wow Bo....zzzzzzt!"
A more cost-effective solution would be to put video cameras all over your yard. An intrusion detector could set off your pager/phone and you could log in on the web at work to look around.
Table-ized A.I.
Honestly, what good is an expensive guard robot that just alerts you? If I spent tens of thousands on a robot to protect my house from intruders, I want it to be able to tear any woodbee burglars to shreds.
I mean, really. Someone breaks into your house and hears this:
....
"FREEZE INTRUDER! Do not move while this autonomous robotic guard unit apprehends you."
whirr... thunk. whirr... thunk. whirr... thunk.
"This guard unit has commanded you to FREEZE!"
whirr... thunk. whirr... thunk. whirr... thunk.
"Hey, damnit, stop, I'm trying to... who the fuck left this stick in the middle of the room?"
thunk. thunk. thunk. thunk. whirr... thunk. whirr... thunk.
"Wait! aww, c'mon... "
whirr... whirr...
"Shit."
---
Quite a long ways off from that bitchin' mecha-thing from Robocop, neh?
s'wut i sed.
Well, as you say really the thing only costs about $500 in parts. But part of what makes it scary, AND a dragon, is the fiery breath - after extensive research it was found that the most efficient fuel source for said breath is $100 bills. So it comes equipped with about $17.5k of ammo to use for fiery ruination for would-be interlopers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley