Good bye, Aibo, hello, Promet
Two news from the robotic world - Sony Aibo is retiring after 7 years of research and development, due to latest Sony restructuring and attempts to cut cost. In related news, the household robots might become much more than entertainment devices with National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science in Japan developing a walking robot that can complete simple household tasks. From the Associated Press article about Promet:
When Hara asks for a bottle of juice, the two demonstrate a more advanced task, one relays the instruction to the other, saying “Please take care of this.” The second robot huddles to a refrigerator, stands in front of it for a while, saying “Confirming the location of the refrigerator.” Then he says “Searching for the juice,” slowly opens the door with a right hand, grabs a bottle of drink with his left hand, shuts the fridge, then walks back to him, squats down at the table and carefully places it on the coffee table.
Yahoo! News also runs a photo slideshow on the robots that were featured in the news lately.
Posted in Entertainment, Gadgets, Robots, Technology at January 28th, 2006. Trackback URI: trackback