Honda is well known for its cars and motorcycles. What is less known is its research in robotics technology, as seen in the Honda ASIMO robot. Since the company is capable of making ASIMO walk “reliably” on its own, why not extend the technology to help humans in walking?

And thus, Honda’s new Walking Assist Device is born. Available in three sizes, the device is worn around the hips and thighs to assist walking for the elderly and other people with weakened leg muscles. Unfortunately, it is designed to assist only people who can already walk on their own.

It uses brushless DC motors powered by lithium ion batteries, allowing up to two hours of walking assistance per battery charge.

Honda will be showcasing the device at the International Trade Fair on Barrier Free Equipments & Rehabilitation for the Elderly & the Disabled (BARRIER FREE 2008), which will be held at Intex Osaka, April 25-27, 2008.

Official Press Release

Honda to Showcase Experimental Walking Assist Device at BARRIER FREE 2008

Honda is planning to offer interested attendees an opportunity to wear and experience this walking assist device at the Honda booth at BARRIER FREE 2008.
(*) This device is designed for people who are still capable of walking on their own.

Honda ASIMO’s spirit is truly worthy of admiration. Even falling down the stairs in front of audiences will not make him give up.

And so he tries again…

And he falls again…

On second thought, ASIMO. Just put some wheels and forget about the stairs.

Poor ASIMO, all he wanted was to get up the stairs. Check out the video, but please do not laugh. Robots have feelings too ya know.

She (or should I say ‘it’?) doesn’t move naturally yet, but it sure is a good start to world domination by sexy dominatrix robots. Her makers named her Dion, so that makes her a blonde that sings mandarin songs. Check out the video.

This badass-looking robot is known as RuBot II, a robot that can solve any Rubik’s Cube in under 50 seconds. It speaks in a rather gentlemanly manner. And upon placing a Rubik’s Cube on its tray, it picks it up, scans the cube with its camera-fitted eyes, and goes on to solving it in blazing speed.



If there is going to be a RuBot III, I would love to see it look more “friendly” and not like it’s going to fry the kid with a laser beam any minute.

Claudia Mitchell, 26, lost her left arm some time ago from a motorcycle accident. It is a painful experience as she describes how it changed her life, such as having to overcome something as simple as peeling a banana.

Now, her life is getting a dramatic change again, but for the better. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has funded the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago with $50 million and created for Mitchell a “bionic” arm. The arm, wired to her chest muscles’ nerves, is able to react to the muscles’ movement and move like her now-missing limb.

Mitchell can now peel a banana with ease by simply willing her bionic arm to hold the banana. Although she is not the first person to receive a bionic arm, she is very first woman in the world to be granted one.

Right now, Mitchell is preparing for the next “upgrade” of her arm, which adds the ability to “feel”. By wiring to her skin above her left breast, her arm would be able to send signals of “touches” to her brain.

Not huge enough to pilot, but still darn huge! This 5-foot (1.5m) tall 1/12 scale RX-78-2 Gundam is all yours if you could bear to part with just 350,000 Yen (~US$3,050).

For those unfamiliar with Gundam (doh!), it is one of the most wildly popular anime series featuring mechas. And the Gundam featured here is one of the earliest designs.

It weighs 77 pounds (35kg), has 14 moving parts, includes a gun and a shield, comes with sound effects, and even has an infrared remote. How cool is that?

For those who prefer the bad guys, there’s also a 1/12 scale MS-06S ZAKU II version.

According to Bandai, it is scheduled for release on December 16 this year. Cutesy Japanese girl not included.

Forget Honda’s ASIMO. What we want are robots like this Land Walker that comes with side-mounted guns! It is nowhere as advanced as your favorite anime/movie mechas, but at least you can own this one. Yes, but at a sky-high price of $315,000.

Made by Mr. Masaaki Nagumo, the Land Walker measures 11 feet tall and weighs about a ton. It walks around with its two legs as you would expect of a mecha, albeit painfully slow. Unfortunately, the side-mounted guns fire just sponge bullets. So don’t expect it to blow things up. But I bet it hurts just as much when shot at people.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in robots has always been limited by the “rules” set by its creators. Now researchers over at the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology have developed a technology that could allow robots to evolve by themselves without any human intervention. They are calling this the Embedded and Communicating Agents (ECAgents) technology.

Not only can the technology allow the robot to self-learn, it also allows the robot to share its knowledge with others.

The researchers at Sony’s Computer Science Laboratory in France has put this technology into their research AIBO units, allowing the robotic pet to learn new tricks all by itself and share whatever he learns with other fellow canines.

“What has been achieved at Sony shows that the technology gives the robot the ability to develop its own language with which to describe its environment and interact with other AIBOs – it sees a ball and it can tell another one where the ball is, if it’s moving and what colour it is, and the other is capable of recognizing it,” says Stefano Nolfi, coordinator the ECAgents project.

Human intelligence is the main reason why we are the rulers of our planet. And placing this intelligence into robots just seem a little too disturbing.

Creating 3D animations from regular 2D images has long been thought impossible by researchers since three decades ago. Describing the geometry of objects to a computer was no easy task back then. Even research computers are so much slower than our current home computers.

But the time is different now. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University has announced that they’ve found a way to help computers learn the geometric context of a 2D image automatically. Not only will we be able to generate 3D scenes from a single 2D image, the technology could also be used with gadgets and robots to better comprehend what their “eyes” see.

The transformation is accomplished by teaching the computer to spot visual cues to differentiate horizontal and vertical surfaces in outdoor scenes. For example, the sky is always blue and cars will likely be resting on flat grounds. From the video below, the technology is looking really promising.

How far do you think we are, from an age where robots roam the street and behave just like everyone of us?