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Hitachi Unveils Humanoid Robot
HunahpuMonkey writes "BBC reports that Hitachi has unveiled a humanoid robot, named Emiew, to compete with Honda's Asimo and Sony's Qrio robots. The robot has a vocabulary of about 100 words and could be trained for practical office and factory use. In addition, it is the fastest robot to date, moving 3.7 miles per hour on wheel feet which resemble the bottom half of a Segway scooter."
OK, here is the challenge:
:-)
Hitachi's new wheeled robot versus Honda's Asimo and Sony's Qrio in BATTLE STAIRS! First one down a flight of 100 steps intact wins.
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"The robot has a vocabulary of about 100 words and could be trained for practical office and factory use"
I don't know about you, but a 100 word vocabulary is already vastly superior to some of the factory workers I've worked with.
Sigs are for Terrorists.
Does anyone else get the mental image of a large feathered robot with a tendency to hump sunbathing women? Or is it just me?
It bears a likeness to R2-D2...
Now all they need to do is affix a gin & tonic brewer...
Is that the only companies willing to do any practical research in robotics is car companies because they use robotics on such a daily basis (the building of cars, of course).
Not only that, robotics is one of the most fun branches of modern computing and engineering, and yet so few engineers actually go into it. It's a shame we aren't meeting up with more robots in real life (Fast foods should be relegated to robotics by now, as the food quality tends to resemble it)...
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Obviously much effort has been put into making this as closely resemble us wheeled humanoids as possible. Hitachi, I applaud you!
Very little stock was on hand, but you would select the music you wanted on one of the robots. It'd burn the audio CD, print up the liner, and assemble a shrink-wrapped product for a couple of yen more than one you'd get off the shelf, then dance around the room playing the biggest hit off the album.
The experience would only have been cooler if it could talk with you, although the sushi-dispensing robots did have a few stock phrases and voice recognition (you had to shout for them to hear you however).
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Most industrial robots I've seen don't need a humanoid form at all, and I can imagine several cases were the humanoid form is actually an impairment to getting work done. Why not go with more structurally efficient designs, like a spider, instead of focusing on bipedal bots for uses requiring ambulation?
Software piracy is victimless theft.
Since when did humanoids have wheels?
Damn I'm behind, I gotta get rid of these stupid legs.
UPGRADE
I, for one, welcome our new office work performing over-
Awe, crap, who am I kidding? I'm going to be freakin' outsourced to one of these little @#$@#$ers...
DIE, YOU LITTLE ROTTER! R2D2 WAS TWICE THE BOT YOU WILL EVER BE!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Japan is pouring billions into robotic software research in part because they don't allow much immigration and migrant workers, and thus want to develop robots to fill those niches instead.
However, rather than build an artificial brain, it appears more cost effective and closer to improve the bandwidth costs so that such bots can be controlled from low-wage nations. We don't need artificial intelligence because there are billions of idle human brains around the planet.
I suppose one could argue that remote-control servants could end up causing malice, but artificial alternives may do the same either because AI might go bizerk, or more likely because it is not good enough yet and will make stupid mistakes.
In short, remote-controll appears the more reachable goal at this stage. Bandwidth cost reduction does not appear to need the giant breakthrus that AI does.
Table-ized A.I.
To me, the saddest part about all this is that the only companies willing to do any practical research in robotics are Japanese car companies because they look farther into the future than the next quarterly earnings report. The Japanese car companies are pumping R&D dollars into developing new technologies that will help them in the long run. The American car companies are taking that money and pumping it into bonuses for CEOs so they can buy a new ivory backscracther every year.
Face it, we just don't have the drive to improve that companies in other countries do.
GMD
watch this
The problem with these robots is how fragile they are. I havent physically seen the other two robots, but Honda's Asimo stays in a little closet when in the lab. Not your typical closet of course, but you get the idea. When in the lab, all you see are other cheaper parts of robots similar or duplicated from Asimo. All the work and main testing is done on these pieces (which makes sense). The thing that I don't like though, and many people don't realize, is that before Asimo is ever unveiled to the public, he undergoes at least 8 hours of configuration. This is each and every time, and then he can only run for maybe an hour and a half iirc. These robots certainly have a lot of potential, and one day possibly could do factory work, but right now the public is being mislead thinking we are further along then we really are. People see this robot and think it probably just walks around all day and they'd like one. There are certainly some huge milestones being made, but the most publically known robots are imho overhyped. I'm not being a pessimist, I would just like to see even more reasearch in humanoid robotics so we can have the future sooner rather then later. Even just a self configuring Asimo would be a huge step in the right direction.
Regards,
Steve