Word: humanoids
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...sinking deck of Titanic. But more than any of his previous movies, Avatar is wholly Cameron's world. The 2½-hr. sci-fi epic follows an ex-Marine named Jake Sully as he struggles for survival on an alien moon called Pandora, home to a tall, blue, humanoid species called the Na'vi and to a mysterious resource called unobtainium, which draws humans in a future century to colonize the planet. Jake (Sam Worthington) must inhabit the body of a human-alien hybrid, or avatar, to breathe the noxious air on Pandora. There he falls in love with...
Near London shuns humanoid avatars; visitors are instead represented by a colored shaft of light. "If you give them bodies, it gets in the way of the experience," says Alex Wrottesley, founder of Near Global, the firm behind the London site. Because you're shopping for yourself, not your avatar. Moreover, he adds, humanoid avatars "really don't look very good." You can also access Near London through Facebook, which means friends can browse and shop together in real time. (Talking to strangers is not allowed...
...while Tokyo's major investment goal may be practical, robotics is also prestigious, giving Japan's big technology companies a global showcase for their cutting-edge research capabilities. Honda devoted millions of dollars towards the development of its first walking humanoid ASIMO "with no hope of direct commercial success," says Noel Sharkey, a robotics professor at the University of Sheffield. The exercise both "shows that they are technological leaders," Sharkey says, and gives Honda a chance to "reward the very best engineers in the company by placing them on the ASIMO team." (Read about robots in the U.S. army...
...experts say the roots of the national love of robotics are in Japan's Shinto religion, which blurs the line between the inanimate and animate and in which followers believe that all things, including objects, can possess living spirits. "Robots have a long and friendly history in Japan, and humanoid robots are considered to be living things and even desirable members of families," says Robertson. While popular culture in the west often casts robots as forces of evil that pose a threat to world peace - or worse, job security - Japan "tends to see robots as a force for good," says...
...Beyond large humanoid robots or industrial ones, Japanese researchers have also created a number of consumer-friendly inventions made for fun or therapy, like pet seals and robot chef that can whip up pancakes. But no matter how clever or cuddly, even in Japan commercial robots have a serious flaw: their price. Consumers balk at their heavy price tags, which typically run into the thousands. Sony's AIBO robotic dog, which cost $2,000 per pup, opened to much fanfare only to be cut in 2006, seven years after its introduction...