Japan Just Delivered Fully performing Female Robots
Japan is currently the forerunner in the world of robotics with highly impressive research
that gives it an edge over all it’s global competition.
Everyday we hear about new advancements that take Japan one step closer to becoming the
base for creating robots that will contribute to the transformation of society.
Wondering about the latest happenings in the Japanese robot sphere?
Say no more!
* Japanese Monkey Tail for the Elderly The year is 2030.
You've arrived at your elderly mother's home to pay her a visit with your chubby toddler
in tow.
After several minutes of watching the giggling tot crawl across the carpet, your mom decides
she can't wait any longer - she needs to feel the squishy ball of human jello in her arms.
As she bends over at the waist, her arms outstretched, you panic, suddenly remembering that she has
a bad back.
Just then, as her body appears ready to topple forward, a mechanical appendage uncoils from
beneath her dress and stiffens behind her like a wooden plank, steadying her from a
fall.
You quickly relax, wondering how you could've been so forgetful.
Your mother has a tail.
Though the scenario we outlined is hypothetical, it's not exactly far-fetched.
Japanese researchers at Keio University have unveiled a robotic tail that has been designed
to be worn by elderly people who struggle to maintain their balance.
Researchers told the wire service that the thick, one-meter device, which is worn using
a harness, functions the same way a money or a cheetah's tail does, by providing its
owner with a counterbalance during demanding movements.
Animals also use tails to signal danger (deer), move in the water (fish), communicate aggression
(beaver) or function as a poison-filled weapon (scorpion), but thankfully the current iteration
of the Japanese tail appears to be devoid of deadly serums.
* Japanese Billionaire Buys 'Affectionate' Robot Venture
Japanese fashion magnate Yusaku Maezawa is all set to buy robotics startup Groove X,
which makes an “affectionate” companion robot, saying that he was drawn by its ability
to “make people feel happy”.
A fund owned by Maezawa has taken a majority stake in the startup, founded by an alumni
of SoftBank Group Corp.’s robotics business, and will move to full ownership in April,
Groove X said, without providing further detail.
Lovot, an amalgam of “love” and “robot”, has wheels and resembles a penguin with cartoonish
human eyes.
It has interchangeable outfits and communicates in squeaks.
Lovot “can’t clean or do work but I see big potential in a presence that can make
people feel happy, particularly at this time,” Maezawa said in the statement.
Groove X previously raised $67.6 million from investors including funds backed by the Japanese
government and Toyota Motor Corp.
The state fund, INCJ, said separately that it had sold its stake to Maezawa for an undisclosed
amount.
It declined to say if it made a profit.
Maezawa “showed a strong interest in the concept of a home robot as providing a solution
to social issues,” INCJ said.
The entrepreneur, who visited the International Space Station on a Russian rocket previously,
made his fortune founding the online fashion retailer Zozo which was bought by SoftBank’s
internet business.
* Japanese FamilyMart trials AI robot for restocking
Major Japanese convenience store operator FamilyMart Co. recently said that it has introduced
a robot with artificial intelligence that automatically restocks drinks at one of its
stores in Tokyo.
The AI robot, installed at a store inside the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
building in the Kasumigaseki district of Chiyoda Ward, restocks products by predicting sales
based on the time and season.
FamilyMart, a subsidiary of major Japanese trader Itochu Corp., aims to reduce the burden
on store employees and boost high-value-added work, such as serving customers.
The robot was developed by Telexistence Inc., an information technology startup in Tokyo.
The device, which comprises an arm, body, rail and other parts, is set between the display
shelves and the storage shelves.
The robot’s arm uses an image sensor to detect whether the display shelves need to
be refilled.
The robot will restock drinks if necessary by grabbing products from the storage shelves
one by one.
The robot can carry a plastic bottle or a can weighing up to 2 kilograms for some 30
seconds.
It will operate 24 hours a day.
At FamilyMart stores, restocking drinks is done in a room whose temperature is set at
5 degrees Celsius and accounts for 30% of store employees’ work.
“We have high expectations that (the robot) will contribute to reducing (employees’)
workload,” FamilyMart President Kensuke Hosomi says.
The convenience store chain plans to install similar robots in more stores in the future.
* Honda’s Future: Air Taxis, Rockets and Moon Robots
Car and motorbike maker Honda Motor Co. is positioning itself for a vertical takeoff.
The Tokyo-based company is embarking on efforts to field a new electric-hybrid air taxi, a
robot with human-like hands that may one day toil on the moon and a reusable rocket to
carry small satellites into space more economically.
Honda’s vision of how people will work, travel and spend leisure time in the future
will help expand its business beyond cars, lawn mowers and motorcycles.
The efforts are a key component of Honda’s “2030 Vision” to broaden the definition
of mobility and to improve peoples’ daily lives.
The automaker, which also has a niche business in small planes, is a newcomer to the space
industry, dominated today by established defense contractors such as Boeing Co. and well-funded
upstarts such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin.
Its seven- or eight-passenger HondaJet has gained limited traction and accounts for a
tiny fraction of the company’s revenue.
Honda also has struggled to keep up with the latest technology in its mainstay automotive
business, partnering with General Motors Co. to develop electric vehicles using that larger
company’s next-generation battery-pack technology.
The carmaker says all three areas of the expansive research and development road map overlap
with Honda’s expertise, including propulsion, electrification, robotics, artificial intelligence
and renewable energy, the company said.
“There is no other company that has all of these core technologies,” spokesman Marcos
Frommer said on a video briefing with reporters.
* Japan Roboticists Predict Rise of the Machines Set in 2019, cult 80s movie Blade Runner envisaged
a neon-stained landscape of bionic "replicants" genetically engineered to look just like humans.
So far that has failed to materialise, but at a secretive research institute in western
Japan, wild-haired roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro is fine-tuning technology that could blur
the line between man and machine.
Highly intelligent, self-aware and helpful around the house - the robots of the future
could look and act just like humans and even become their friends, Ishiguro and his team
predict.
"I don't know when a Blade Runner future will happen, but I believe it will," the Osaka
University professor told AFP.
"Every year we're developing new technology - like deep learning, which has improved the
performance of pattern recognition," he added.
"Now we're focusing on intention and desire, and if we implement them into robots whether
they become more human-like."
Robots are already widely used in Japan - from cooking noodles to helping patients with physiotherapy.
Marketed as the world's first "cyborg-type" robot, HAL (hybrid assistive limb) - developed
by Tsukuba University and Japanese company Cyberdyne -- is helping people in wheelchairs
walk again using sensors connected to the unit's control system.
Scientists believe service robots will one day help us with household chores, from taking
out the garbage to making the perfect slice of toast.
Stockbrokers in Japan and around the world are already deploying AI bots to forecast
stock market trends and science fiction's rapid advance towards science fact owes much
to the likes of Ishiguro.
He previously created an android copy of himself - using complex moving parts, electronics,
silicone skin and his own hair -- that he sends on business trips in his place.
* Japan's Ageing Workforce Robot Helps in Coronavirus
Mira Robotics developed its "Ugo" robot to reinforce greying Japan's shrinking workforce,
however as the coronavirus threat persisted, the Japanese startup began offering its machine
as a tool in the fight against the outbreak, the company's CEO said.
"The coronavirus has created a need for robots because they can reduce direct contact between
people," Ken Matsui told Reuters at his company's workshop in Kawasaki, near Tokyo.
"We've had inquiries from overseas, including from Singapore and France."
The latest feature of the remote-controlled or so-called avatar robot was a hand attachment
that uses ultra-violet light to kill viruses on door handles.
An unprecedented population decline that is shrinking Japan's workforce by more than half
a million people a year as well as a reluctance to bring in foreign labour to fill vacant
positions has spurred robot development in Japan.
That’s all for this video, folks!
See you another time!