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Giant Mech Robots From Japan
New submitter Hanike writes "According to The Verge, Japanese hi-tech company Suidobashi Heavy Industry is developing a 13-foot, diesel-powered, real Mecha robot called Kuratas! 'The two-man team — artist Kogoro Kurata and robotics researcher Wataru Yoshizaki — isn't stopping there, either. Suidobashi wants to mass produce, starting at the low price of $1.35 million. So, what do you get for the money? Kuratas has over 30 hydraulic joints that allow it to freely move its arms, legs, and torso. It can fire water bottle rockets and fireworks, and its 6,000 round-per-minute BB Gatling guns are controlled with the pilot's smile; part of Yoshizaki's V-Shido (read like bushido, as in "way of the samurai") control system. In order to get around, the four-legged mech uses ordinary wheels, but the Suidobashi team wants to get it walking in order to navigate uneven terrain.'"
How are you supposed to stop smiling when you are mowing down your enemies?
'nuff said. Should have kept trying.
I can't wait for the gauss cannons and jump jets!
Obvious Astroturfer is obvious.
even smaller?
Am glad I've lived long enough to see this built.
Now, I need to live long enough to afford it.
to be mass-produced for monster truck rallies here in the states. XP
Replace the water guns with real guns and you have your first SkyNet robot. http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/Series_T1
Obvious astroturfer only managed to make me terrified of ever working with the beast...
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
The robot can only be controlled by a small person such as a 12 year old girl with orange hair.
Windows OS
Oh good JESUS what were they thinking?!
I can't wait for GIANT MECHS to go on a rampage down the town because they got a virus.
A mech with wheels is like a sword with a foam blade.
Battletech coming to life!!!
When they have one shaped like Gigantor I'll have to cry because can't have it.
Reactor online.
Sensors online.
Weapons online.
All systems nominal.
The interesting thing about this is that it's not totally Japanese project. Apple's research center Xerox and Microsoft Research have provided lots of the technology to the two researchers and it runs partly with embedded Windows OS. If you want to program the robot you can just plug in Visual Studio with full debugging capabilities!
Oh great,. a TOY operating system.
Will this program be secretly run by the Agriculture Ministry as well?
Have gnu, will travel.
Interesting, but most of the construction looks non-functional and aesthetic - like the hands, for instance. It does not look sturdy enough to serve as a riot suppression device, nevermind anything serious.
Bubba with a mig welder, an old Asian cab-over-engine mini-bus type van, a junked Caterpillar frontend loader, and the frame from a US truck could probably make something similarly aesthetic which is actually able to perform work. Betcha it'd be more fun to pilot, too.
It'd certainly be fun to pilot, but what large machinery isn't? For a million dollars, you could build something quite comparable on your own.
Hell, for a bit more than a couple months of training and knowing the right people, you can get paid to operate heavy machinery which has much more capability.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Best Thing This Week
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
No Sarge!
Now, they need to make one with a giant scythe and bat wings so we can have Deathscythe, and one with angel wings for Wing Zero. /nerd
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
-- Ethanol Fueled
Oh great, now someone's gonna have to put on their octocamo and fight their way into the bases until the Big Boss battle...
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Was the software for it written by Gowa Digital Systems?
WHEN you are reincarnated, you just increased the likelihood of your coming back with dark skin just so you can appreciate the other side of that coin.
I, for one, welcome our...
So, when can we see some awesome footage of these mass produced robotic overlords trashing Tokyo? It's traditional.
If you're in Canada, this was featured a year or so ago on Daily Planet on the Discovery Channel:
Daily Planet - Embedded with Mark Miller - Land Walker. Though it just burns me that they seem to not say "mech" at all.
I think this one was slightly cheaper...
i don't know what you are complaining about, this giant robot will solve all those problems that you think are more important.
Won't the revolution be easier if we all had Giant Mech Robots? i don't know how you plan to successfully lead your little rebellion against the govt now, when we can't match the firepower of their tanks and jets. These Giant Mech's will turn the tide and give us equal footing so we can stand toe-to-toe with the military to enact our coup. to take back our drugs and healthcare.
yeah sorry, i know. don't feed the trolls.
News Flash: Slashdotters have varying political leanings. Many readers here are actually Libertarians and likely hate socialized medicine. However, this is a technology site and giant mech robots from Japan certainly fit with the "news for nerds" theme of the site.
If you feel that your information on "Obamacare" is important and relevant to Slashdot, I suggest you submit it as an article rather than bringing it up in a completely unrelated topic.
How long until it's used for military applications?
the videos sucked. i wanted to see it in real action
if we could get a fusion reactor small/portable enough to power large lasers, shrink the U.S. Navys' rail gun and some long and short range missile packs, we could have our first real battle mech. With heavy enough armor and hardened components, I am so excited...
>> I think this one was slightly cheaper...
Only because they paid in Canadian loons.
Gee, thanks a lot.
Now piss off. I'll do what I want. How do you like that?
This company is actually a subsideary of Infinite Stratos Corporation, LLC. based in Tokyo, Japan.
They use high-school aged kids because their reflexes are faster, but it gets the job done.
There was some competition between the test pilots, but things have evened out and settled down
(you know how emotional kids can get). Several countries already have their own models (as was
noted in the training videos) - exacly which countries is a closely guared secret, though.
BSoD ==> used to mean: Blue Screen of Death
BSoD ==> now means: Bloody Shoot out Drone
But of course it will only go "bzzrrk" when there is a virus in the MS OS. The rest of the time it will be more like this:
Operator: Kill pedestrian *points at a little grandmom with a walking-aid*
MS OS: This operation might harm you or other people, are you sure? [yes] [no]
Operator: *clicks yes*
MS OS: are you really sure? [yes] [no]
Operator: *clicks yes and grunts*
MS OS: To complete this operation you need administrator privileges, do you want to continue? [yes] [no]
Operator: *clicks yes and grunts and moans*
MS OS: Enter administrator password here [ ]
Operator:*type type type type type type*
MS OS: loading bullets, 1 second remaining
MS OS: loading bullets, 30 seconds remaining
MS OS: loading bullets, 2 hours remaining
MS OS: loading bullets, 7 minutes remaining
MS OS: loading bullets, 1 second remaining
Little grandmom: *already safe at home making tea*
rm -rf --no-preserve-root /
..., and its 6,000 round-per-minute BB Gatling guns are controlled with the pilot's smile
This gives the term "land of the smiles" a totally different meaning.
"we are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
This brings a tear of joy to my eye... Finally, some overt examples of future technology. All that's left to fulfill my childhood vision of the future is flying cars, supersonic transports, torus-style space stations, and proper spacecraft (FTL optional but strongly encouraged).
I want two of them. Placed on either side of my drive way will do. It would show people I mean business.
Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
Note how any time there is motion you only see a portion of the object. The arm movements and in-traffic video are clearly CGI, and the raise/lower video could be done by a crane from above since everything above the legs is cropped out.
And while we see the gatling barrels spinning, I don't see anything being fired out.
In other words, this is a sculpture, not a mech. I doubt it's anything other than an elaborate miniature plus a fake cockpit.
Praise be to the Machine-God and the God-Emperor on the Golden Throne.
Can we /. affect a spam link taking it offline?
I for one, welcome them
They say it they will be selling them for $1.35M each. But not many anime geeks can afford $1.35M toys. Is there some practical industrial application that the developers have in mind but don't seem to want to publicize at this point?
Is this like Tetsujin 28 or Gigantor?
I'll take mine with a Minigun and Hydra 70 rocket launcher.
Wait until my neighbor's dog sees me coming.
The point is to pummel to death an infestation of rodents with lethal amounts of BBs.
I guess the OSX version would be:
Operator: Kill pedestrian *points at a little grandmom with a walking-aid*
OSX: ---- no response
Operator: clicks the little lock next to the triggers to unlock it
OSX: please enter an admistrator password
Operator: type type type type type
OSX: loading bullets, barbershop pole
OSX: loading bullets, barbershop pole
OSX: loading bullets, barbershop pole
OSX: loading bullets, barbershop pole
OSX: loading bullets, barbershop pole
Operator: any day now
OSX: loading bullets, pinwheel
Operator: uhoh
OSX: loading bullets, pinwheel
OSX: The operation could not be completed.
Operator: No shit. Why not?
OSX: An unexpected error occurred.
Operator: thanks for nothing.
Little grandmom: *already safe at home making tea*
It's a tachikoma from Ghost in the Shell. Sadly it doesn't come in blue.
Buy your next Linux PC at eightvirtues.com
operator@ubuntu ~/ $ echo "granny @ heading 36.3 azimuth -14.5" > target ./configure
operator@ubuntu ~/ $ open_fire target
bash: open_fire: command not found
operator@ubuntu ~/ $ sudo apt-get install open_fire
E: Unable to locate package open_fire
operator@ubuntu ~/ $ wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/open_fire/open_fire-0.4.6.tar.gz
2012-07-31 15:56:43 (450 KB/s) - `open_fire-0.4.6.tar.gz' saved [14437]
operator@ubuntu ~/ $ tar -xvf open_fire-0.4.6.tar.gz
operator@ubuntu ~/ $ cd open_fire-0.4.6/
operator@ubuntu ~/ $
operator@ubuntu ~/ $ make
operator@ubuntu ~/ $ sudo make install
operator@ubuntu ~/ $ open_fire target
* punches holes in pavement *
to be mass-produced for monster truck rallies here in the states.
As usual science fiction is way ahead of reality, ten years to be precise. What you describe was the exact plot of Allen Steele's short story "Mudzilla's Last Stand", initially published in January of '93! From an article about Steele:
His writing shows a passion for the sometimes lurid tone and language of the lowest forms of popular culture, as in "Mudzilla's Last Stand," which details how future announcers will promote the battle of Mecha-men robots as a working class entertainment on the same order as Monster Truck Rallies.
I remember reading the story in Asimov's when it first appeared. Aside from being prophetic, it was a pretty good read. The plot is that a Japanese company builds a real battle mech much like the one in the TFA. The robot was intended to be genuine military hardware, but there were no takers because it turns out giant man-like metal monster robots are somewhat impracticable on real battlefields. Eventually the only prototype gets sold to, you guessed it, a promoter of monster truck rallies. You can guess what happens next... Or read the story.
Ok maybe not the weirdest.
Not to be pedantic (actually I do), but aren't we comparing apples and oranges in these previous examples?
MS OS: This sequence surely would need to be repeated for every target.
OSX: Suffers from the same problem, again, an administrator password is needed.
Ubuntu: Aside from the obvious lack of a "loading_bullets-1.0.0.targ.gz", and its own "make configure && install", I'd say any ubuntu-powered mech-warrior worth his salt would have done this before going into battle in the first place.. free to "$ open_fire target" at will!
I'm assuming the "loading bullets" duration is a function of mechanical hardware so you can't really blame that on any of the operating systems...
So.. My choice would be the UbuntuMech all damn day long...
Now all they gotta do is shrink 'em down to human sizes!
[The post title is the first thing that came to mind when I saw this story. Couldn't put a better version of it in because the filter said 'TOO MUCH REPETITION']
Lol at least we can have more fun failing at linux then any other flavor!
I mis-read that as UrbanMech. My monitor is now covered in coffee.