Walking, talking living doll: Japanese scientists unveil female android
By Anny Shaw
Japanese professor Hiroshi Ishiguro yesterday unveiled a female android that can laugh and smile as it mimics a person's expressions.
Using a motion-capture system, the robot, called Geminoid TMF, can move its rubber face to imitate a smile, a toothy grin, and a grim look with furrowed brows.Prof Ishiguro, a professor at Osaka University, developed the android with a team of researchers together with Japan's robot maker Kokoro.
Geminoid TMF was modelled on a young Japanese woman, who was present at the unveiling today.
'I felt like I had a twin sister,' the woman said afterwards.
The developers said they expected the robot to be eventually used in real-life situations, such as in hospitals.
'We've already got some data showing that the robot gave patients psychological security by nodding and smiling at them, when patients were checked on by doctors,' Satoko Inoue, spokeman for Kokoro, told Dawn.com.
'A new technology always creates some fears and negative opinions,' but the researchers wanted to make robots that could express something similar to human emotions, said Prof Ishiguro.
Geminoid TMF is equipped with 12 actuators, powered by air pressure, and her motion can be synched to imitate that of a real human being.
Prof Ishiguro has designed several robots made to look like humans in the past - even building one in his own image.
The professor has said that one day robots could fool us into believing they are human.
'An android could get away with it for a short time, 5-10 seconds. However, if we carefully select the situation, we could extend that, to perhaps 10 minutes,' he said.
Professor Ishiguro with the android he built in his own image
Giant shark's image is projected onto a screen of water in a stunning light display
By Daily Mail Reporter
With the backdrop of the illuminated Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo skyline, this image of a giant white shark was captured during the Odaiba water illumination show in Japan.
It was projected on to a huge water screen, 15 metres high 40 metres across, created by a fountain set along a beach at the Tokyo Bay area. The show is performed four times after sunset in the Japanese capital. Among the many images screened are frolicking dolphins, tropical fish, a whale and the famous maoi figures from Easter Island in the south-eastern Pacific Ocean.
Toyota Run by 'Pirates'
KOMPAS.com - Toyota has been hijacked by ‘pirates’, the company’s former US boss claims. Jim Press, who left Toyota in 2007 to join rival Chrysler, sent an email to influential US car website Automotive News, claiming the company had drifted from its family-oriented culture to one focused on profits.
“The root cause of their problems is that the company was hijacked, some years ago, by anti-family, financially oriented pirates,” Press wrote in his email.
“Toyota doesn't want me to speak out, but I can't stand it anymore and somebody has to tell it like it is,” Press wrote.
Press spent almost four decades at Toyota and was the first non-Japanese to serve on the company’s board. The email says the company’s boss, Akio Toyoda, who took over the reins in June last year, is the man to turn around the company’s fortunes in the wake of a disastrous recall of more than 8.5 million vehicles.
“Akio Toyoda is not only up for the job, but he is the only person who can save Toyota. He is very capable, and he embodies the virtues and character that built this great company.”
Toyoda, the grandson of Toyota founder Kiichiro Toyoda, has fronted US Congress to apologise for problems with sticking accelerator pedals that have been blamed for at least 30 deaths in the US. Toyoda blamed the company's rapid growth for the safety flaws that forced the recall of millions of its cars worldwide.
He said Toyota's evolution into the world's biggest car maker had come at a tremendous cost. ''Quite frankly, I fear the pace at which we have grown may have been too quick.''
Referring to Toyota's tradition of putting safety first, before quality and sales, Mr Toyoda added: ''These priorities became confused, and we were not able to stop, think, and make improvements as much as we were able to before, and our basic stance to listen to customers' voices to make better products has weakened somewhat.''
Toyota faces class actions and a potential damages bill in the billions of dollars. Press said previous management “didn’t have the character necessary to maintain a customer first focus. Akio does.”
“It will be the Toyoda family's values that get Toyota through this,” he said.
“What the company needs now,” he wrote in his e-mail, “is for everyone in the company to get behind Akio and do everything possible to emerge from this mess as an even stronger company.”
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