Poor Asimo

Post date: Jul 09, 2013 5:9:49 AM

My world quite small at the moment - so sorry not a lot of blogging to do

I did notice as I was signing in that we have passed the 500 mark - this is post number 502!

Today I am thinking about Asimo. Poor Asimo is having trouble at his job. He gets confused and ends up stuck.

Asimo is a robot made by Honda and his job is as a tour guide at a museum in Tokyo. He is apparently very good at pouring a drink into a cup but so far he is struggling with telling the difference between people who raise their hands to ask a question and those people who raise their hands holding a phone/camera and intend to take a photoAsimo thinks so little of himself he assumes all raised hands are for questions and keeps asking "Who wants to ask Asimo a question?" If no one answers he keeps asking

This tour could take some time

Apparently one of the possible uses for the robots were to go into areas that were dangerous for humans - like say Fukishima post nuclear crisis - but robot deemed too sensitive for that and they let people go anyway.

Most practical use for Asimo suggested to date is to help people confused by the ticketing system for Japanese public transport - apparently in this situation quite a few people want to ask Asimo a question and he can (usually) answer