DARPA, the American agency commonly known for its hilarious supervillain-esque laser projects and weaponized dolphins, took time out of its wacky military inventions schedule to hold its Robotics Competition in Miami, Florida, where a humanoid robot from Japanese company Schaft, Inc. took top prize.
robots (Page 13)
Right now, how terrified would you be if we told you that Shimizu Corporation, one of Japan’s largest and most powerful engineering and contracting conglomerates, is in the planning stages for a project to send a team of robots to the moon in order to build a laser to point at our home world?
Don’t worry though. Shimizu isn’t plotting to enslave the people of earth. Instead, the company is looking to provide us all with clean, renewable energy.
Japan loves its fictional robots. The adorable Doraemon and unsettling Evangelion are instantly recognizable to both young and old. The giant statue of Gundam in Tokyo has become a major tourist attraction, despite being in the middle of Odaiba, which was already a major entertainment district with no shortage of other, hipper attractions.
And now, another robot, the Patlabor, has joined Gundam in making the leap into the three-dimensional world, towering size intact.
One of the first major adjustments I had to make after moving to Japan was making a habit of carrying a bag with me whenever I go out. Having grown up in L.A., it took me a while to overcome the notion that bags were strictly for students and people with a double set of X chromosomes, but eventually I saw the light. If you live in an urban area of Japan, you’re reliant on public transportation. Without a car and a trunk to haul stuff in, a bag is really the only way to carry anything you can’t fit in your pocket but don’t want to hold in your hand all day.
Of course, my resistance might have broken down a lot quicker if I’d known about the upcoming man bag that makes you look like a giant robot.
Remember those science videos they used to show at school which began with the smallest known organism and zoomed out and out until the entire solar system filled the screen? Well imagine that but with almost every robot and mecha you could ever imagine thrown in for good measure.
Uploaded to Niconico Video by user Monako, the video “I Compared the Size of 174 Robots: Microman to Gurren Lagann” is making an appropriately huge splash online today as netizens play Name that Robot while marvelling at just how enormous some of these sci-fi creations are actually supposed to be. From Doraemon and Mega Man to Optimus Prime and Macross Quarter, this is one heck of a nerdy science lesson!
Zima never really took off in the U.S.. Molson Coors’ clear malt beverage never even made it out of puberty in its home market, lasting just 15 years before the last Zima made for American consumption shipped in 2008.
In Japan though, it’s been a solid hit, particularly at clubs. The company recently asked the lofty question of whether the way human beings party is advancing at the same rate of other aspects of our modern lifestyle, and has decided to give it an evolutionary kick in the backside by creating a robot party band.
As with most weeks in Japan, robots seem to be dominating the news, but this one’s much cuter and waaaay more alarming.
Sakakibara Kikai (or Sakakibara Machines), a well established manufacturing company in Gunma Prefecture, has released a video of their KID’S WALKER CYCLOPS out for a test drive. (No buildings were destroyed by errant missiles in the filming of this video.) Read More
It seems every time a news story about robots appears, someone inevitably freaks out, screaming about Skynet or the Matrix. Well, this time, they might be right!
While it lacks the dexterity and sweetness of other robots, this one can not only assess and comprehend its surroundings but also learn through the Internet! (Oh, please keep it away from Wikipedia. It’ll conquer the world in a month.) Read More









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