Sony to set up intelligent robot lab: report

http://www.spacedaily.com/2004/040314073341.ks4bidsh.html ^ | 15 Mar 04 | staff

[RightWhale]

Sony to set up intelligent robot lab: report

TOKYO (AFP) Mar 14, 2004

Japanese consumer electronics giant Sony will set up a laboratory to develop intelligent robots, adding to its line of pet and humanoid machines, a press report said Sunday.

The wholly owned laboratory will be established in May or June by recruiting 10 to 20 leading researchers in robotics and brain science from universities and research institutes in Japan, the Asahi Shimbun daily said. No official was immediately available at the head office of Sony Corp. to confirm the report.

"I hope to bring into existence in five years' time a robot which can communicate so naturally that it is indistinguishable from man," the daily quoted senior Sony executive Toshitada Doi as saying. Doi has led Sony's development of robots starting with its popular robot entertainment dog AIBO.

Last December Sony unveiled the world's first "running" robot, QRIO, which can jog at a speed of 14 meters (46 feet) a minute. Weighing seven kilograms (15 pounds), silver metallic QRIO is 58 centimeters (23 inches) tall, with beaming blue lights for eyes.

The projected laboratory will study the latest theories of brain science and wide-ranging research on how the brain behaves in health and illness, and apply them to robot development, the report said. It hopes to create a robot which can make voluntary and intelligent movements by learning things by itself or reacting to changes in its surroundings, the report said.

[RightWhale]

Anybody can work on robotics. The investment is next to nothing in dollars, but big in hours.

[vp_cal]

they're just taking on jobs that no one in
the US would want to do. ;)

[RightWhale]

Robots should do all the drudgery so we will be free to spend our time in non-productive ways. Robots could even do our Internet posting chores and we could look in from time to time to see if the Liberal bots are getting the upper hand.

[bmwcyle]

I see a movie

Robots battle the Illegals

[DTA]

perhaps consumers will also get intelligent to stop funding Sony's ingenious engineering flops such as elcaset, betamax, memory stick and $1000 toy dogs.

Sony, buy Apple Corp. and make something useful for a change (Sony Ipod Sony Macintosh)

[RightWhale]

Robotics could transform the planet and open outer space to development. Instead of backing off of technology we should push technology to robotics. Then we would have put our post-modern crisis to rest.

[norraad]

Also right here on "erf", firefighters could benefit right now from robotics applied to help them.

The list is endless.

Social pressures & stigmas keep robotics at bay, I guess.

I don't really understand it, being as we're in the future and all (where are the flying cars I read about in the 1967 Popular Mechanics Magazine that would be quite common in the year 2000)

[Dan Evans]

It's deja-vu from Japan. Reminds me of the fifth generation AI project about 1983. They sunk a billion or so into AI research and you don't hear much about it anymore.

What is it about the Japanese with monsters and robots?

[RightWhale]

One reason we may not have robotics in the way Popular Science showed it 50 years ago is that robotics has developed differently. I don't know if this is true, but someone said we have seven microcontrollers in our car on average. Microcontrollers are the heart of robotics, so we could have seven robots in our car if you want to look at it that way. There is no robotics' standard that requires any particular sensors or actuators. Our robots may not walk around and serve breakfast in bed, and maybe that's not the kind of servant we need. All the same, robotics is a new thing even while it has been around a while. Robotics should be huge.

[IAmNotAnAnimal]

But I want a dumb robot, not an intelligent one, much more entertaining - Are dumb robots on sale at the DNC flea market?