Several manufacturers have talked about using fuel cells to power phones, but most such devices are still in the experimental stage. Pictured are early prototypes. KDDI hopes to offer a fuel cell phone next year.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
In Japan, robots are people, too
In Japan, robots are more than mere gadgetry--they're practically family.
Unlike the U.S., where the icons of a dawning era of robots tend to be either the faceless, Frisbee-shaped, floor-scrubbing Roomba or the killing machines of the "Terminator" movies, the consensus on the other side of the Pacific tends toward cuddly animals and small children. It was Japan, after all, that gave the world the puppylike Aibo, the toddler-size Asimo and the cartoon figure of Astro Boy.
And it's Japan where the government is making a big push to have, within the next decade or so, a corps of nonthreatening robots ready to assist in office tasks, housekeeping and elder care. Colin Angle, the CEO of Roomba maker iRobot, cites estimates of 39 million household robots there by the end of the decade.
In a new book called "Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robotics," journalist Timothy Hornyak delves into the reasons behind the country's fascination with friendly, humanoid machines. The roots stretch from 17th-century novelty items on through Japan's pacifist reaction to the atomic bomb blasts of World War II.
Hornyak, a Montreal native who's been in Japan since 1999, recently spoke with CNET News.com while traveling through New York to promote the book. He shared his observations on Japan's robot culture, past and present, and on the challenge of building his own robot. (To see a photo gallery of the robots mentioned in this interview, click here.)
Q: The basic premise of your book is that there is something different about the way the Japanese approach robots. Do you want to elaborate on that to get us started?
Hornyak: There is a major difference in the way Japanese have approached robots. They are far more interested in making robots into partners for human beings. They are very successful at combining engineering and design in robotics. The result is that the robots, particularly the humanoids, end up seeming a lot more like living beings instead of just buckets of bolts. It's much easier to believe that they are coming to life, and it's much easier to have empathy for them--because they are so much like us, we feel a sort of irresistible urge. Japanese, particularly, feel an irresistible urge to treat them like fellow beings instead of just lifeless automatons.
Whereas in the U.S. or Europe there is a kind of Frankenstein tradition, where created beings are monsters or dangerous somehow.
Hornyak: That's right. Certainly philosophies in the U.S. and Europe regarding robots harken back to the old archetype of Mary Shelley's book--also, in the 1920s, Karel Capek and his play "R.U.R." in which robots are perfected as the ideal worker, but whoops, they go wonky and they kill every single human being on the planet except for one last guy. The net effect of this seems to be not only wariness about robots coming to life, but you look at some of the robots here, and they are almost purposefully designed not to look humanoid.
In your book you talk about some of the ways that the Japanese relationship with robots developed. What is it in the traditional karakuri dolls that stands out, making them precursors of robots, a friendlier sort of device?
Hornyak: The karakuri dolls of the Edo period in Japan, 1600 to 1868, were specifically designed as automatons, entertainers. I mentioned in the book the example of the tea-serving doll, which was really a nifty conversation piece. If you were wealthy back then, you could receive a guest in your home, kneel down on the tatami mats with him, you would whip out your handy-dandy karakuri tea-serving doll, put a cup of tea on it, it would scoot over to the guest, he'd drain the cup and then it would autonomously not only stop, but it would do a 180 after the teacup is replaced on its tray and go back to the point it came from.
What is also really relevant to the robot tradition in Japan is the other form of karakuri, which are the stage or float karakuri. They look like Spanish galleons--they are just incredible, these wooden floats that are elaborately carved, being paraded throughout the town, and the puppet shows that are performed on these things. What's interesting is that the automatons seem to move by themselves under their own power, swinging through trapezes, doing elaborate somersaults and that kind of thing, doing costume changes. I saw these shows, and I was just amazed at how surprisingly independent and lifelike some of these wooden dolls were.
In Japan, robots are more than mere gadgetry--they're practically family.
Unlike the U.S., where the icons of a dawning era of robots tend to be either the faceless, Frisbee-shaped, floor-scrubbing Roomba or the killing machines of the "Terminator" movies, the consensus on the other side of the Pacific tends toward cuddly animals and small children. It was Japan, after all, that gave the world the puppylike Aibo, the toddler-size Asimo and the cartoon figure of Astro Boy.
And it's Japan where the government is making a big push to have, within the next decade or so, a corps of nonthreatening robots ready to assist in office tasks, housekeeping and elder care. Colin Angle, the CEO of Roomba maker iRobot, cites estimates of 39 million household robots there by the end of the decade.
In a new book called "Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robotics," journalist Timothy Hornyak delves into the reasons behind the country's fascination with friendly, humanoid machines. The roots stretch from 17th-century novelty items on through Japan's pacifist reaction to the atomic bomb blasts of World War II.
Hornyak, a Montreal native who's been in Japan since 1999, recently spoke with CNET News.com while traveling through New York to promote the book. He shared his observations on Japan's robot culture, past and present, and on the challenge of building his own robot. (To see a photo gallery of the robots mentioned in this interview, click here.)
Q: The basic premise of your book is that there is something different about the way the Japanese approach robots. Do you want to elaborate on that to get us started?
Hornyak: There is a major difference in the way Japanese have approached robots. They are far more interested in making robots into partners for human beings. They are very successful at combining engineering and design in robotics. The result is that the robots, particularly the humanoids, end up seeming a lot more like living beings instead of just buckets of bolts. It's much easier to believe that they are coming to life, and it's much easier to have empathy for them--because they are so much like us, we feel a sort of irresistible urge. Japanese, particularly, feel an irresistible urge to treat them like fellow beings instead of just lifeless automatons.
Whereas in the U.S. or Europe there is a kind of Frankenstein tradition, where created beings are monsters or dangerous somehow.
Hornyak: That's right. Certainly philosophies in the U.S. and Europe regarding robots harken back to the old archetype of Mary Shelley's book--also, in the 1920s, Karel Capek and his play "R.U.R." in which robots are perfected as the ideal worker, but whoops, they go wonky and they kill every single human being on the planet except for one last guy. The net effect of this seems to be not only wariness about robots coming to life, but you look at some of the robots here, and they are almost purposefully designed not to look humanoid.
In your book you talk about some of the ways that the Japanese relationship with robots developed. What is it in the traditional karakuri dolls that stands out, making them precursors of robots, a friendlier sort of device?
Hornyak: The karakuri dolls of the Edo period in Japan, 1600 to 1868, were specifically designed as automatons, entertainers. I mentioned in the book the example of the tea-serving doll, which was really a nifty conversation piece. If you were wealthy back then, you could receive a guest in your home, kneel down on the tatami mats with him, you would whip out your handy-dandy karakuri tea-serving doll, put a cup of tea on it, it would scoot over to the guest, he'd drain the cup and then it would autonomously not only stop, but it would do a 180 after the teacup is replaced on its tray and go back to the point it came from.
What is also really relevant to the robot tradition in Japan is the other form of karakuri, which are the stage or float karakuri. They look like Spanish galleons--they are just incredible, these wooden floats that are elaborately carved, being paraded throughout the town, and the puppet shows that are performed on these things. What's interesting is that the automatons seem to move by themselves under their own power, swinging through trapezes, doing elaborate somersaults and that kind of thing, doing costume changes. I saw these shows, and I was just amazed at how surprisingly independent and lifelike some of these wooden dolls were.
well everyone,
i've been through some rough days lately(as some of you already knows), i think now i'm getting better, at least i'm trying to recover.
the good news is i'm doing a new research that i always wanted to carry out, and finally i got the approval, but the bad news is i dont have any time to give to this research.
so, this research is about using people's mistakes to create new postulations, actually it involves lots of stuff, but thats what i can explain , other things are realy complicated.
i've been through some rough days lately(as some of you already knows), i think now i'm getting better, at least i'm trying to recover.
the good news is i'm doing a new research that i always wanted to carry out, and finally i got the approval, but the bad news is i dont have any time to give to this research.
so, this research is about using people's mistakes to create new postulations, actually it involves lots of stuff, but thats what i can explain , other things are realy complicated.
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