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...BUSINESS Sony vs. Honda: Robot wars...
...people would like to. Thanks to advancing computer technology and falling semiconductor prices, companies are starting to dream they might be able to make money selling robots to the masses. In addition to Honda's experimental program, Japanese electronics giants Sony, Matsushita and Sanyo are all developing "personal robots" they hope will some day become as ubiquitous as televisions and at least as companionable as accountants. Sony engineers say the business stands where the personal computer industry stood in the early 1980s, when many doubted whether desktop machines would ever be more than expensive playthings. "PCs are a pretty good...
...Sadly, ASIMO is not for sale. Honda, which has built 20 ASIMOs, won't say how much it cost to develop, but the firm is putting them to tentative commercial use as a public relations gimmick. Honda is renting ASIMOs to four companies, including IBM Japan and a science museum in Tokyo, for reception duties at the circuit-scrambling price of $163,000 a year...
...Indeed, there's a gaping cost-benefit gulf to be bridged before Honda's little walking man can evolve into the next Walkman. Consumers have been conditioned to expect robots to behave like C-3PO of Star Wars. But creating artificially intelligent machines that can sense and interact with the environment in a convincing way is a monumentally complex computing task. The Japanese government's Humanoid Robotics Project set out five years ago to deliver a robot versatile enough to perform hard labor in hazardous conditions. Some $40 million has been spent but the project's HRP-1 robot still...
...racing to build more specialized machines. Matsushita, maker of the Panasonic brand, has developed a vacuum-cleaning droid with powerful dust sensors, while Sanyo is working to commercialize a remote-controlled guard dog equipped with a digital camera and mobile phone. Sony has taken a slightly different approach. While Honda researchers pursue the holy grail of the film Bicentennial Man?a mechanized butler?Sony's vision is closer to the sci-fi movie A.I., which features a boy-bot that offers unconditional robot lovin'. The company has sold more than 100,000 of its toylike AIBOs since the robo...