25 March,2009 07:46 AM IST | | Balaji Narasimhan
Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology has created a cool robot that may one day take care of us as we grow older
She is around five-feet-two-inches and weighs 43 kilograms, but don't think about taking her out on a dateu2014at least, not immediately. For we are not talking about a real person but a robot with the not-very-sexy moniker 'HRP-4C' which was featured at the annual Japan Fashion Week in Tokyo.
Before we continue, let us state that technology can usually be seen from two anglesu2014concept and end-product. And the latter this robot definitely is notu2014I saw a video on Reuters and the movements of the robot seemed quite jerky even when one makes allowances for bandwidth bottlenecks. As Shuji Kajita, director of humanoid robot engineering at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, told Reuters, "Our robot can't move elegantly like the real models that are here today."
Nice concept
But as a concept, it is something and I don't mean that it is going to give Naomi Campbell or Cindy Crawford sleepless nights. Perhaps the best thing about this robot is that it makes robots seem more human. To understand this, you must first appreciate that robots are not as modern as we generally like to believe.
In fact, Wikipedia tells us that a Muslim inventor during the Artuqid dynasty called Al-Jazari designed the first programmable humanoid robots way back in 1206. In more modern times, many robots play a role behind the scenes in a lot of areas for instance, for several decades, robots in factories have been assembling the cars that we have been driving.
Shake a leg
But thanks to sci-fi movies like Star Wars with R2-D2 and C-3P0 and V.I.N.CENT from the 1979 movie The Black Hole (which at that time featured the longest computer graphics sequence that had ever appeared in a film), we need to see an android to perceive a robot merely a mechanical arm that is doing the boring task of welding locks on a car door will not do.
And this is where cute robots like HRP-4C step in. Especially in Japan, where this robot was designed, robots are increasingly expected to take care of the fast ageing population, and let's face it, neither your grandma nor mine would want to be looked after by something that looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in the closing scenes of the Terminator movie.
Expressive faces
What people need are not just androids, they need robots that are as human as possible in everything they do or appear to be and this includes facial expressions. While HRP-4C doesn't have too many facial expressions to boast of, she (or it?) can manage up to a point thanks to the presence of motors to control facial expressions.
End of the day, forget about catwalks such robots, rather than walk on ramps, will probably be looking after you and me when we grow older. And I don't know whether we should be thankful or scared!
QUICK TAKE
>>A new robot called HRP-4C was featured at a fashion show in Tokyo
>>While not as good as humans, it has some good facial movements
>>One day, such robots may take care of elderly people
Top 10 movie robots
1. R2-D2 and C-3P0 in Star Wars (1977)
2. Der Maschinian-Mensch in Metropolis (1927)
3. The Terminators in The Terminator (1984)
4. The Iron Giant in The Iron Giant (1999)
5. Robby in Forbidden Planet (1956)
6. Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
7. Johnny-5 in Short Circuit (1986)
8. Data in Star Trek: Generations (1994)
9. Robot in Gunslinger Westworld (1973)
10. MechaGodzilla in Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla (1974)
Source: www.christianitytoday.com
