- A Japanese company unveiled a prototype of a human-shaped
walking robot it said will be mass produced for sale at £2,500 [$4,600]
by the end of the year.
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- Tokyo-based ZMP, which has so far only made robots for
research and rental, expects to sell about 3,000 of the new Nuvo model,
which will be manufactured by another company.
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- The manufacturer and sales network have not yet been
decided, ZMP president Hisashi Taniguchi told reporters at a Tokyo hall.
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- Although other Japanese companies, including electronics
and entertainment giant Sony and carmaker Honda, have created humanoids,
the machines have merely taken part in events and are not on sale for consumers.
Sony's Aibo doglike robot has been mass produced and starts at £400
[$750].
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- The 15-inch-tall Nuvo walks on two legs, picks itself
up when it falls, recognises voice commands such as "advance"
and "stop," and is controlled by remote from a mobile phone.
It has a digital camera in its head that relays images of its surroundings
to a videophone.
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- Its developers said Nuvo's design was kept simple with
mass production in mind. While offerings from Sony and Honda resemble a
child in their shape and movement, Nuvo has a more mechanical look because
its head is lodged into its chest and its arms are steel rods with fingerless
balls for hands.
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- "This robot is not merely for research. It is for
commercial sale, and we want it to enter people's homes," said Kiyoyuki
Okuyama, a designer who worked on Nuvo.
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- ©2004 Scotsman.com
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- http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2598879
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