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Writing by Evan Ackerman on Tuesday, 23 of December , 2008 at 2:46 am
Sadly, this 49 foot tall Asimo float from Honda won’t actually be marching. But it will be tipping its hat to the crowd, apparently. And it’s made out of, um, rice. And lettuce. For real. It’s nice and eco-friendly, but I’d rather have less vegetables and more actual robot, you know? Unless maybe they’re planning to serve it up as a salad course at the end of the parade…
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Tuesday, 21 of October , 2008 at 3:31 am
Robots-Dreams had the brilliant idea to bring a Casio EX-F1 high speed camera along with them to a Honda ASIMO demo, and filmed ASIMO running across the stage at 300 frames per second:
It’s generally difficult to tell if ASIMO is actually running; that is, at some point neither of his feet should be touching the ground. The video shows that to be the case, albeit just barely. But hey, if you had a really complicated and expensive robot, you’d probably want it to spend as little time in midair as possible.
Although the video ends rather abruptly, it’s also interesting to see ASIMO go from running to not running by changing his gait and moving his center of gravity backwards (by straightening up) to slow down to a stop. Very cool.
I guess it’s pretty obvious that the people who program ASIMO aren’t the most creative when it comes to dance moves. You’d think that at the very least, he’d be able to do an amazing robot, but so far he can’t hold a candle to this guy.
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Wednesday, 14 of May , 2008 at 4:27 am
It’s not too often (yet) that a group of humans takes orders from a robot. But if we’re going to obey one, it may as well be one developed and owned by a major corporation. Last night, Honda’s ASIMO directed the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a performance of “Impossible Dream,” and it managed not to kill anyone or fall over:
Don’t get too excited, though… Although there’s no specific information, I’m reasonably certain that ASIMO isn’t doing anything dynamically. The routine doesn’t look completely preprogrammed, but you can bet that there are a whole heap of people backstage pushing buttons. The performance was to open a fundraiser concert featuring Yo-Yo Ma, and Honda donated over $1 million to set up a music education fund for Detroit public schools. See? Robot are our friends. Just don’t play a wrong note, or ASIMO will kick you in the nuts.
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Thursday, 13 of December , 2007 at 5:58 am
The clips in the above vid are from a demonstration at Honda’s headquarters in Tokyo of the latest incarnation of their famous Asimo robots. The part that blew me away is that if you’re only half paying attention to what’s going on (or if you let your eyes go out of focus a little bit), Asmio looks remarkably human as he walks around the office environment. His human co-workers look terrified, but that’s to be expected, right? Asimo doesn’t have much new in the way of hardware to show off, but his AI has been vastly improved, and multiple Asimos are now able to work together to distribute and accomplish tasks:
“The robot can, for example, recognize drink choices and carry a tray with the requested drink to the person who placed the order. [It] also does a better job of moving around people because of technology that allows it to better predict people’s movements so it doesn’t get in the way. The robot can even automatically head off to the nearest charging station when its batteries fall below a certain level.”
This latest version of Asimo will be at Honda’s headquarters serving eggnog for the next few months if you feel like stopping by and sharing a drink with him.
