Bouncing Red Ball

Posts Tagged ‘Robots

Here’s a summary and lots of photos of robots that appeared at the recently held Robo-Japan 2008 exhibition in Pacifico Yokohama Hall.
The Robo-Japan 2008 poster outside the exhibition hall

30 Oct, 2008

Japan unveils house-cleaning robot

Posted by: brb In: Robots

“A new robot developed by the University of Tokyo and Toyota Motor Corp., able to collect the washing and move furniture for cleaning, is being touted as the first step towards a robotic domestic helper.”
“Robots have traditionally been bad at handling anything other than solid objects, but the robot named, “AR,” is able to recognize [...]

23 Oct, 2008

The world’s first flower-shaped robot

Posted by: brb In: Robots| Tech

Robots come in many different shapes: there are humanoid robots, robots shaped like seals, dogs, snakes, bugs and dinosaurs but this is probably the first known robot that is shaped like a flower.
Korean researchers have developed a hibiscus-shaped robot that can simultaneously be used as humidifier and air freshener. When approached, the robot bends its [...]

Tags: ,

The NetTansorWeb (NTW) doesn’t have Kitty-chan’s looks nor Plen’s rollerskating skills but it does one thing that other robots can’t: it blogs. This is probably the world’s first robot blogger, if you discount splogs that are created by net bots.
This harmless-looking robot might actually replace real bloggers in the future.

This Wi-Fi enabled robot has a [...]

At just 3.4cm, Takara Tomy’s Robo-Q is indeed small and you have to wonder how they fit the computer, sensors, actuators and battery in such a tiny bipedal, humanoid machine. It’s main purpose seems to play football and they have little soccer fields in Robo Japan with several of these robots kicking soccer balls (controlled [...]

Although not strictly robots, Nabaztag and Chumby are two of the most popular “smart objects”, so called because of their ability to connect to the Internet and interact with various Internet applications (to read news headlines, weather forecasts or email for example).
Nabaztag is a bunny-shaped (”nabaztag” is Armenian for “rabbit” I read) Wi-Fi enabled France-born [...]

The ACM-R5 snake robot is probably the least lovable robot in the recent Robo Japan exhibition but very impressive nonetheless. (A name made up of letters such as ACM-R5 is also decidedly more impersonal than, for example, Hello Kitty Robo.) But this is the work of university students (from the Hirose/Fukushima Robotics Lab of the [...]

Plen is one of my favorite robots. He is cuddly small, has a gorgeous face and a well-proportioned body. And did I mention already that he can skate?
Here are some of his photos from the recent Robo Japan exhibition.
Plen, the desktop robot.

Plen takes a rest.

Plen with a gorgeous face.

Plen lying down.

Plen with a giant billboard [...]


Flickr PhotoStream

    Tokyo Auto Salon 2009 Toyota Lexus LF-ATokyo Auto Salon 2009 Toyota Lexus LF-ATokyo Auto Salon 2009 Toyota Lexus LF-ATokyo Auto Salon 2009 Toyota Lexus LF-ATokyo Auto Salon 2009 Toyota Lexus LF-ATokyo Auto Salon 2009 Toyota Lexus LF-ATokyo Auto Salon 2009 Toyota Lexus LF-Atokyo_auto_salon_racing_lancer7tokyo_auto_salon_racing_lancer6tokyo_auto_salon_racing_lancer5tokyo_auto_salon_racing_lancer4tokyo_auto_salon_racing_lancer3tokyo_auto_salon_racing_lancer2tokyo_auto_salon_racing_lancer1Tokyo Auto Salon 2009: Toyota Corolla AxioTokyo Auto Salon 2009: Toyota Corolla Axio

About Bouncing Red Ball

This blog is about robots, gadgets, travel and hiking. In Japan.

Photos in Bouncing Red Ball are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license. You may use them in your website but please link back.

You can contact me at reon{@}bouncingredball{.}com.


Tags

RSS Pink Tentacle

  • Macabre kids’ book art by Gojin Ishihara
    Here is a collection of wonderfully weird illustrations by Gōjin Ishihara, whose work graced the pages of numerous kids’ books in the 1970s. The first 16 images below appeared in the “Illustrated Book of Japanese Monsters” (1972), which profiled supernatural creatures from Japanese legend. The other illustrations appeared in various educational and entertainment-oriented publications for [...]

RSS Japan Probe

  • Karuizawa Cosplay
    Asahi TV reporters Sahel Rosa and Alain visit an antique photo studio in Karuizawa and try on some costumes: — Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe) dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

RSS What Japan Thinks

  • Working mothers in Japan
    Here is another very interesting survey from goo Research, a look at child-rearing and working. This is the second time the survey has been conducted, the first time being in December 2007, but I didn’t translate that one. Demographics Between the 24th and 29th of June 2010 exactly 1,000 members of the goo Research online [...]