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Hitachi Unveils Humanoid Robot

Posted by samzenpus on from the almost-human dept.

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."

5 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. Intelligencia by oskard · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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.
  2. I think the saddest part about this... by ciroknight · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  3. So life-like... by mfender9 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Obviously much effort has been put into making this as closely resemble us wheeled humanoids as possible. Hitachi, I applaud you!

  4. I've seen something like this. by Sheetrock · · Score: 5, Interesting
    During a brief sojourn to Japan a couple of years back, there was a music store that had a robotics theme.

    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.




  5. The problem with .... by LnxAddct · · Score: 5, Informative

    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