March 3, 2004
Japanese Two-legged Home Robot
Slashdot has a link to an article on a Japanese athletics company that is going to be selling a two-legged robot for home use. Someone has translated the article from Japanese:
A two legged robot that you can play with in your home will be available as early as the end of this year for 500000 yen. Venture company ZMP and sports equipment company Mizuno, together announced on the 2nd.
As for 2 legged robots, Sony's QRIO and Honda's ASIMO are famous, but they are mainly for publicity purposes and are rarely purchased for general use.
nuvo is 39 centimeters, and 2.5 kilograms. It can walk forward, backward, left, or right, and if it falls, can get up automatically from any position. It can be taught about 1000 words, follow directions, (something [jishiki?]) or dance.
In the head is a camera. Using NTT DoCoMo 3rd generation phones, you can see from the robot's perspective, and use it as a remote controlled "security robot".
Minimizing the use of joints allowed the cost to remain low. Over 3000 orders are expected by the new year.
Very, very neat. I don't think it will go much beyond the toy-like aibo, but still pretty cool.
Posted by elkaim at March 3, 2004 12:01 PM