Toward 'Blade Runner': Future robots will look and think like us, Japanese android maker predicts
Set in 2019, cult '80s movie "Blade Runner" envisaged a neon-stained landscape of bionic replicants genetically engineered to look just like humans. So far that has failed to materialize, but at a secretive research institute in western Japan, wild-haired roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro is fine-tuning technology ...
Japan's nursing facilities using humanoid robots, IT to improve lives, safety of elderly
Humanoid robots and advances in information technology are increasingly being used by nursing homes in a bid to give elderly people a better quality of life. In one example, a nursing home in Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, has enlisted the help of the Telenoid robot via ...
An android version of literary giant Natsume Soseki has been unveiled in Tokyo.
Soseki android unveiled to rekindle interest in late author
"Hello. Excuse me for remaining seated. It's been nearly 100 years, hasn't it?" So said an android version of literary giant Natsume Soseki in a calm voice when it was unveiled to the media in Tokyo on Thursday. The robot, dressed in a light brown tweed ...
Growing chorus of experts is raising ethical questions about the future of robotics
Crowds filter through a darkened corner of Tokyo's National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation on a recent Saturday, seeking to catch a glimpse of what the future may be like. One of the attractions is a child-like creature that sits perfectly still, and occasionally ...
Fukada's 'Sayonara' captures android intimacy
'We all die alone" is a thought voiced by the famous (Hunter S. Thompson and Orson Welles among them), but it seems to state the obvious. We also all have toothaches alone, do we not? In Koji Fukada's "Sayonara" a terminally ill young woman (Bryerly ...
Director Koji Fukada explores nuanced human-robot divide in 'Sayonara'
Whether it's the anthropomorphic cyborg cat Doraemon, Sony's artificially intelligent canine pet Aibo or even baby harp seals created to assist dementia patients, robots have long been recognized in Japan as capable of providing therapeutic and emotional assistance for their human owners. Director Koji Fukada's ...
With half the decade complete, we examine an industry that has significantly changed the way we think about ourselves.
French idol reflects on her Japanese droid son
As a playwright, stage director, Osaka University professor, manager of the Komaba Agora Theater in Tokyo and leader of the city's Seinendan theater company he formed in 1983, Oriza Hirata — whose "contemporary colloquial theater" set the scene for much of Japan's new drama ...
Kafka's worm takes a high-tech turn
"I work a lot in France, where manga and anime are enormously popular, although many theater producers think they are basically for children and are often too violent. However, they regard my robot theater as being an essentially Japanese art form," the pioneering dramatist ...
When a chatbot can convince judges at Britain's Royal Society that it is a 13-year-old Ukrainian boy with limited English skills, it may be time to worry about a computer taking your job.
Humanoid robot exhibit opens in Tokyo
The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan) on Tuesday unveiled three humanoid robots that are to be put on display so visitors can interact with them. Two of the machines were modeled on actual human forms, using special silicone and artificial muscles that ...
