Two-Legged Home Robot, Coming Soon To Japan 260
An anonymous reader submits "Two Japanese companies, (ZMP corp., and Mizuno, a athletic goods manufacturer), announced that they will start selling the first two-legged robot for home use. The robot, called nuvo, will retail for 500,000 yen. It wil be able to understand 1,000 (Japanese) words, dance, and allow the owner to contact the robot via 3G phones."
I can't read Japanese (Score:3, Funny)
Nice picture though.
Human Translation (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Human Translation (Score:2, Funny)
"hacked robot kills faimly"
im not sure if thats a godo thign or a bad thing
Re:Human Translation (Score:5, Informative)
Actually the word reads "ojigi," and it means "bowing (greeting)." So the whole sentence reads: I found it amusing that Japanese engineers imprinted what is known as their stereotypical behavior (bowing) to the robot. You say, "Hey, Robot! Apologize!" and this robot will bow in front of you without knowing what he did wrong. What a nice pet.
Re:Human Translation (Score:5, Funny)
Interestingly enough... my girlfriend already has a robot identical to this!!! *sigh*
Re:Human Translation (Score:2)
Hey, you're the only amateur translator other than me who got the 'joints' part right!
There should be a community for amateur Japanese translation -- it'd be good to get some feedback and corrections.
Re:Human Translation (Score:5, Funny)
A robot that can't get you stoned? Think I'll pass...
Selling 3000 toys at $3800 US each (Score:2)
What's the point? No, seriously, what's the point of doing this? Is this a prototype of a robotic product for worldwide marketing? At $3800 US a pop?
The world population is exploding. There is always going to be someone who would be
Re:Selling 3000 toys at $3800 US each (Score:2)
Re:I can't read Japanese (Score:2, Interesting)
Two english stories (Score:4, Funny)
For the metrically challenged "39-centimetre-tall" is roughly 16 inches high. Woohoo. That'll scare burglars, especially with those blue balls on the end of its arms. For that price, I think I'll stick to the low-tech version that comes with an environmently friendly wind-up key.
3G Phones ? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:3G Phones ? (Score:3, Funny)
At least those frickin' robots don't have frickin' laser beams attached to their heads.
A toy? (Score:3, Insightful)
More than just "wow, this is cool! Imagine a beowulf cluster of these", this robot is a significant step forward for the assisted-living technological front.
Re:A toy? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A toy? (Score:3, Funny)
Small problem there, it doesn't have any hands.
Re:A toy? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A toy? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A toy? (Score:3, Insightful)
"...or even notify the authorities if the owner doesn't move for more than a specified time."
I totally love this one... I love you man, i'm ur fan from now on
Japanese Geeks wants another kind of robot (Score:2, Interesting)
snurf-kin wrote [slashdot.jp]:
I want maid-robot!
...and Annoymous Cowerd replies [slashdot.jp]:
There are no market for robots without Hentai("moe") element!
Both of above comments area moderated +2,Funny & Insightful
This is the mindset of Japanese geek,sad fact...
Re:Japanese Geeks wants another kind of robot (Score:2, Funny)
The BSD article on the front page of slashdot.jp has 51 comments, and none of them are modded down to -1
Wrong! (Score:5, Interesting)
Except the robot is useless for that. No hands for medicine and the camera will not be sufficiently well-placed for monitoring. There will only be a single (low-res) viewpoint of the world from low to the ground. There will be too many false alarms from sleeping, watching TV or just out of the house!
Nope. The Japanese fixation with humanoid robots is not going to help caring for the elderly any time soon. We have no good way of dealing with flexible materials, no good vision-based object recognition for reasonable sets of objects and no way of doing truly dextrous manipulation (two arms at once!).
When someone produces a cheap robot with reasonable sensors and an open source development environment, we many be getting somewhere. Then, instead of reading Slashdot, you could be programming your own robot.
Re:Wrong! (Score:3, Funny)
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. -- I. Assimov
Re:Wrong! (Score:2)
Oh, here it is. ng-5 [ebay.com]
Re:Mod parent funny. (Score:2)
Re:Wrong! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wrong! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A toy? (Score:3, Interesting)
To pay for relatively minimal care for an elderly relative - even just a daily visit for half an hour to make sure they havent puked into the TV costs 5 figures a year. Extend that to relatively hands on / live in care and your looking at a significant percentage of even the best salary. If your siblings can't chip in and there no insurance around you can be looking at well ov
Re:A toy? (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow... That's sounds pretty bad too. What we need are compassionate loving families that stick together to take care of their own. I know it probably isn't ever going to happen, but when we abandon those who cared for us because it's inconvenient, what kind of justice do we deserve?
On a lighter note, I want my kids to buy me a robot to feed my trained monkey and walk the dog that fetches my prescriptions... And don't forget nurse Olga to give me
Re:A toy? (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, I thought that sounded a little rediculus, so I thought I would check around. I was right according to the this: CIA Factbook [cia.gov]
The mean and median ages are barely past forty.
Re:A toy? (Score:4, Funny)
The mean age of 69 to 71 year-olds in Japan is approaching 70
Re:A toy? (Score:2)
Re:A toy? (Score:3, Informative)
You're over-aggerating. According to the CIA World Fact Book [cia.gov], 18.6% is older than 65, while the median age is 42 (how could it be different ;-). A fertility rate of 1.38 is not very healthy indeed - although 22 countries have an even lower rate, especially is eastern europe. So the fact that those robots mainly come from Japan rather than Europe (or the USA) is not caused by the age structure, but must have other causes.
Re:A toy? (Score:2)
The true home robot is probably 10 years off, or even more. But for now there's toy robots, and vacuum cleaners. Perhaps next year both versions (humanoid & usuform) will do a bit more and be a bit cheaper. It's still a few years until the robot that can run an summon help wh
Welcome (Score:3, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
You're crazy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You're crazy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Realdoll robotics (Score:2, Funny)
Most men do, it's called getting married.
Re:Realdoll robotics (Score:3, Funny)
Hey, what's the big deal? It's just a fucking machine...
(With apologies to Ken Macleod!)
100 words, dance and mobile phone? (Score:5, Funny)
sounds like most girls you meet in clubs today...
Re:100 words, dance and mobile phone? (Score:5, Funny)
Not quite like most girls I meet in clubs:
Re:100 words, dance and mobile phone? (Score:3, Funny)
The price (Score:5, Informative)
Source: http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic
Re:The price (Score:2)
Translation.... (Score:5, Informative)
Use the fish (Score:2, Informative)
DON'T use the fish! (Score:5, Informative)
excite translation [excite.co.jp]
Re:DON'T use the fish! (Score:2, Funny)
Funky! (Score:2)
video link on the article page. (Score:2, Informative)
Asimo it ain't, but interesting looking (although it seems to have trouble with the "STOP!" command...).
Do the dishes (Score:5, Informative)
But it won't do the dishes, though...
Re:Do the dishes (Score:2, Interesting)
Watching through the camera I'd probably get motion sickness... but this "bad mofo sure is pimpin."
You know... I had originally purchased an AIBO... and I was so interested in the technology. The concept was great. Autonomous robot.... V.1 - I love where this is going. Sure, this stand up robot... V.1
Translation (by me)... (Score:5, Informative)
Among two-legged robots, Sony's QRIO and Honda's ASIMO are popular. Howver, they are mostly rented out, and serve purposes of advertisement -- not aimed at sale to the general public.
nuvo is 39 cm tall, 2.5 kg. It can walk in all four directions, and when it falls in either direction, it can get up with its own strength. It can be taught 1,000 words for daily colloquial speech. It can also do such things as bowing and dancing upon being instructed.
The face has a built-in camera. Using a 3G cell phone, images viewed by the robot can be confirmed, and remote operation can be practiced, making it a surveilance robot.
Joints, which are costly to develop, were minimized to lower its price. The companies look forward to selling 3,000 items by the beginning of next year.
also tons of links (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Translation (by me)... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the voice-recognition in the vid is real, than that too is pretty sophisticated.
I only wonder how well it's pathfinding works (if there's any)
If it can't navigate a house there's not much use for it as assistance to a disabled person.
But for $4000, still an engineering achievement
Re:Translation (by me)... (Score:2)
More pics & movies (Score:5, Informative)
Lord of the Dance? (Score:3, Funny)
PS - For those wondering about the video post slashdotting, imagine an akward looking slot machine with pointlessly complex legs wobbling aimlessly across a stage in a rythm and fashion in no way whatsoever resembling the happy-love-fun-time-gogogo japanese techno music playing in the background.
Then call that "dancing".
Translation (Score:2, Informative)
At the end of the year, for 500,000 yen (approx. $5000) it will be possible to take home a new bipedal robot. Created jointly by a venture company (ZMP) and Mizuno Sports, the NUVO, as it's called, was revealed for 2 days.
While Sony's QRIO and Honda's ASIMO made bipedal robots famous for advertising, it is rare to have a robot directed at the general buyer.
NUVO, stands at a height of 39 cm and has a weight of 2.5 kgs. The robot can wal
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Japan Lagging.... (Score:4, Interesting)
walking on planetary surfaces (Score:3, Informative)
Mobility on planetary surfaces: may walking machines be a vable alternative.pdf [pg.gda.pl]
This Just In... (Score:2, Funny)
Bipedal robot is a bad move from design standpoint (Score:5, Interesting)
This is obviously a toy plain and simple, but you can't help wonder what kind of super maneveurable robot they could have created had they ploughed their efforts into something less pointless.
Re:Bipedal robot is a bad move from design standpo (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, maybe they are still working on it. A reasonably mobile bipedal robot that can get up by itself would be a nice advance towards a bipedal robot that can navigate more difficult terrain, such as stairs.
Once they get to that point, making robots bipedal will make sense... since these robots will then be able
Re:Bipedal robot is a bad move from design standpo (Score:3, Interesting)
No, a bipedal design is just silly. We are bipeds solely because the body plan from which we evolved only had four limbs with which to work. Compared to most other mammals -- quadripeds -- we are slow, clumsy, and prone to fall and crack our giant heads open like overripe canteloupes.
If you want a truly sensible design, you would make a body plan with at least four legs, with the
Re:Bipedal robot is a bad move from design standpo (Score:2, Insightful)
And then rebuild all cars to support this new shape, or my new robot isn't going to be driving me anywhere any time soon.
Re:Bipedal robot is a bad move from design standpo (Score:2)
Why would you want a robot to drive you anywhere? Just build the intelligence directly into the car.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Sony was first!!! (Score:2, Redundant)
I've seen this about 4 or 5 month ago:
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/QRIO [sony.net]
battlebots on a new level (Score:4, Funny)
not only do the bots slug it out, you also get to hear their masters yelling commands in japanese!
hmmm how do you say "ROBOT RIGHT CROSS" in japanese
it'd be cooler if the robots could speak, then they could trash talk each other....it'd be a half hour of action and crazy talk
Re:battlebots on a new level (Score:2)
(YA) human translation (Score:3, Informative)
Bipedal robots such as Sony's Qrio and Honda's Asimo have already appeared but offerings directed at the general public have been rare.
Nuvo stands 39 cm high and weighs 2.5 kg. It can walk forward, back, left and right and if it falls over it can get up no matter which way up it is. It has a conversational vocabulary of nearly 1,000 words, and can obey an instruction to bow or dance.
The face contains an built-in camera. Using a 3rd generation NTT DoCoMo mobile phone the user can see through the robot's eye, so it can even fuction as a remote-controlled 'guard robot'.
Price was kept low by reducing the amount of expensive-to-develop joints. The makers hope to sell upwards of 3000 units in the first year.
----
Too late to karma whore, but I like translating things...
English article (Score:5, Informative)
Legs - why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Legs - why? (Score:2, Insightful)
-- vranash
Boy is *that* a mischaracterization of events. (Score:2)
But the Robotech people were actually very nice about it - they made FASA change the names of the mecha but didn't make them change the images, which is why you can still find veritech-looking "wasps" and "stingers" and "phoenixhawks" in the Battletech board games.
Ok, so you can talk at it (Score:5, Insightful)
That's it?
But can it do the dishes? Vacuum? Take out the rubbish? Press the TV channel change button?
Re:Ok, so you can talk at it (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ok, so you can talk at it (Score:2)
But what does it DO? (Score:5, Interesting)
Get x
Put x
Get paper from curb
Get beer from fridge
Get book from shelf
Get remote from table
Get phone from cradle
Put item into the trash
Put toy in child's room
Turn on/off light
Dogs can be trained to do this stuff. Why not robots?
Of course, it has to be able to keep itself charged.
Robots will become even more useful and desirable when they can start doing particalar tasks:
Wash dishes
Take out trash
Scrub toilet
Change cat box
Vacuum floor
Do laundry
Don't talk to me about Roomba. I'm talking about a _generally_ smart humanoid robots that is capable of using other dumb machines to accomplish a task. I wish IBM would spend research dollars on this rather than research how to play a better game of chess. (Not that don't like chess!)
This allows for two things:
1) If the dumbs are designed to be used by a human, then the work can done interchangebly by human or robot. Robots will be ultimately replaceable.
Suppose you have a really competent roobmba, that keeps the floor nice and clean. So much so that you no longer have a vaccuum, becuase the roomba is the tool for the job. When the roomba breaks, you are sol.
If you have a dedicated (potentially non-humanoid) robot for each dedicated task, we beging to lose control of our environment and become dependant on the robots.
But an intelligent humanoid robot can step in right now and start using the tool already available to to any number of tasks.
If the robot breaks, humans can step and clean the bathroom with the same tools the robots has been using. Or, you will only need a single set of redundant intelligence in case of failure.
2) By keeping the intelligence (and the expense of intelligence) in a humanoid form, we gain a lot by allowing the peripheral tools to remain dumb -- and therefore cheap and "the same as it has always been."
The Robotic Age will not look much different than the age we are in now. All of the same stuff will be in place and work the same way. It's just that there will this additional robot that does some of the work.
As voice recognition becomes more tenable, it would be nice to put that complexity in one place for consumers. Instead of having the microwave, tv, a/c and lighting system each having their own voice recognition system -- ("TV, turn off." and "AC, set temperature to 74 degrees.") We can have a single system in a robot that can respond to our voice commands and operate all the existing dumb systems in our current households.
In my imagination, robots like what I'm envisioning above will be significant purchases for households, on the order of a vehicle purchase. They would be financed. You would have one or two per house. They would be insured.
Re:But what does it DO? (Score:3, Funny)
> insert key
Sorry. I can't do that.
> put key
Where?
> place the key in the damn lock you bloody parser!!!
Sorry. I don't know what that means.
> this stupid game sucks
Sorry. I don't know what that means.
> unlock door
You use the key to unlock the door. Score +1 (11 of 500).
I wonder how long before you lose it and boot the robot across the
Re:But what does it DO? (Score:2, Funny)
Wash dishes
Take out trash
Scrub toilet
Change cat box
Vacuum floor
Do laundry
Just make sure you don't get the programming mixed up:
Scrub cat
Vacuum dishes
Take out toilet
etc.
Re:But what does it DO? (Score:2)
Re:But what does it DO? (Score:3, Funny)
.
Why is Japan? (Score:2)
Or is it because the West, particularly the US is "ahead" litigation wise?
Creepy (Score:2)
hmm... (Score:2, Funny)
Nobody wants goofy "twiki" robots (Score:3, Funny)
He should have a nice future at Quizno's (Score:2)
Kinda makes that Segway look like a useful bargain at 4 bills...
Not good for much until... (Score:3, Funny)
a nice combo (Score:2)
then set up a game map in a warehouse, and let them have a go at each other.
nothing like that remote-controlled crud on TV.
I, Robot (Score:2)
Shameless plug for summer "I, Robot" movie (Score:2)
The first A.I. will be in entertainment (Score:2)
Re:OT Slashdot "Joe Job" (Score:2)
this ain't technical support ;)
Re:OT Slashdot "Joe Job" (Score:2)
Re:OT Slashdot "Joe Job" (Score:2)
Re:I'm an American (Score:2)