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New Japanese Humanoid Invites Grown-Ups To Play

Japan's toy giant Tomy displays the world's smallest humanoid robot "i-Sobot", 165-mm in height, weighing 350g and equipped with 17 micro actuators and a gyro-sensor to keep its balance and perform dancing in Tokyo 20 July 2007. The i-Sobot, white model is the domestic model and the black one for export, will go on sale on 25 October. Photo courtesy AFP.
by Staff Writers
 Tokyo (AFP) Jul 24, 2007
 One of Japan's top toy companies said Friday it would launch small humanoids for adults to play with, hoping to tap a new market as the developed world gets older. The 16.5-centimetre (half-foot) tall robot, named i-Sobot, is able to make some 200 physical movements, including somersaults and other complex acrobatics, speaks some 180 words and responds to verbal commands.

Tomy Co. Ltd. said the target audience was men in their 40s and above.

"As the number of children decreases, toy makers, if they want to maintain their market, have to reach out to adults and lift the barriers between toys and high-tech products," company official Kimi Watanabe told a news conference.

"There are lots of adults who dream of having a real robot but don't have the means, knowing it would cost them several hundred-thousand yen," or thousands of dollars, he said.

The i-Sobot will go on sale in Japan at a cost of 30,000 yen (250 dollars) on October 25.

An English-speaking version will go on sale shortly afterwards in the United States. The company chose to make the Japanese-speaking robot white and the US version black.

A European launch is anticipated next year.

Tomy hopes to sell 50,000 units in Japan and 300,000 worldwide.

The robot will be the first product sold with Sanyo Electric Co.'s next-generation rechargeable Eneloop battery "in hope of sending an ecological message and reducing the use of disposable batteries," Watanabe said.

Japan has one of the world's oldest populations as more seniors live longer and many young people decide that starting families would impose a burden on their careers or lifestyles.

Source: Agence France-Presse

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ROBO SPACE
Robots Incorporated
 New York, NY (SPX) Jul 20, 2007
 Software pundits and tech analysts can be forgiven for overlooking Microsoft's new robotics group. Compared with the company's billion-dollar businesses--Windows, MSN, Xbox, and more--robotics is nonexistent. Microsoft is giving its robotics software away for free for noncommercial use, and the company is charging only a small license fee to commercial users. Indeed, Microsoft is hardly betting the farm on the group, devoting only 11 of its 76,000 employees to creating Robotics Studio 1.0.






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