Word: robots
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...BUSINESS Sony vs. Honda: Robot wars...
...looks like a child wearing a spacesuit and walks with a deceptively natural gait that belies the whir of gears and motors emanating from its hard plastic body. Reacting to a person entering the lobby of Honda Motor Co.'s Wako Research Center just outside of Tokyo, the robot advances toward the reception desk, stops, bows and says in a prepubescent boy's voice: "Welcome to the Honda R. and D. center. My name is ASIMO." When the visitor offers to shake hands, ASIMO extends a mechanical hand in response. Then, on cue from a Honda employee, the robot waves...
...Cute. But is this bucket of bolts smart enough to get me a beer? To Masato Hirose, senior chief engineer at the Honda lab, this is not a facetious question. Since 1986, Honda researchers have been trying to build a robot that could balance and walk naturally like a human. With ASIMO (short for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility), mission accomplished. Now they are moving on to the next epochal challenge: creating a generation of humanoid machines that boast the kind of butlering skills of classic science fiction robots. "Imagine a machine that's as versatile as a human...
...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...
...Plenty of Japanese see a domestic market emerging. According to the Japan Robot Association (an organization currently run by humans), the country's personal-robot market could grow to $8 billion by 2010 from almost nothing today. That projection is based partly on wishful thinking, partly on demographic trends. Japan's rapidly aging population and shrinking workforce is expected to create a growing need for personal assistants and low-level health care workers that machines might fill...