How do you say, “Dey durk our dobs!” in Japanese?
For those of you easily creeped out by such things, you can see video of Asimo handling a tray here.
Yep, saw that on the news here this morning. Pretty neat. They included some close-up photos to prove he was actually running (i.e. both feet were off the ground in mid-stride).
They also showed a demonstration of Asimo (who I will refer to here as a ‘he’) showing off his new sensors while guiding a guest to a meeting room:
The guest shows up at the reception desk and tells Asimo who she has an appointment with. Asimo replies “Ms. Sato, please follow me.” and begins walking down the hall. Ms Sato, however, stays where she is.
After walking about ten paces, Asimo detects that Ms. Sato isn’t following. He stops, turns his head back a little bit and repeats, “Ms. Sato. Please follow me.” This time she starts moving. Once Asimo detects that she’s behind him (or someone is, anyway. I have no idea if this system would work at all if there were anyone else in the room), he starts walking again.
Who’s the company that’s got the samurai robot (complete with armor)? I saw clips of it on a news show tonight, but they didn’t name the company and my google fu isn’t up to the task of finding it. (Nor have they posted anything about it on the news shows website yet.)
Hmm… don’t know that one.
Run! Run for your lives!
(or am I the only one that thinks they should have designed that banner a little more thoughtfully?)
Today, Asimo–tomorrow, Gigantor!
Bummer. The company made a big to do about the whole thing, unvieling it at a temple, and having lots of folks dressed in matching samurai armor around it.
Found it. Doesn’t seem to have made much of a stir here, even with the company that built the thing.
Here’s an article about it in Dutch: http://www.telegraaf.nl/i-mail/30200331/Samurai_robot.html
And a brief mention over at fuckedgaijin.com: http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14095&highlight=tmsuk
And the website of the Tmsuk ( 
the Japanese version is written as Temuzak): http://www.tmsuk.co.jp/english/robots.html
They don’t mention anything about the Samurai robot, so it’s probably one of their other models just dressed up for a particular occasion. Although I didn’t realize until just now that this event happened just this past Monday, so they may not have added it to their website.
Just as I posted, they updated their news page. There’s going to be a segment about their “two-legged walking Kiyomori robot” at a shrine in Kyushu on the NHK network tonight.
Am I the only one having trouble here? I dutifully installed Flashplayer8, but all I’m getting is a black screen with sound. No exciting video of Asimo for me.
I didn’t even bother installing the new Flash player, but I did like the picture that shows up if you don’t have it (cartoony guy in a Honda helmet in a sort of apologetic pose - head bowed, hands down).