We’ve covered our fair share of animal robots from Japan in the last years, but PIGORASS, developed by Yasunori Yamada from the University of Tokyo surely stands out: Yamada has developed a four-legged robot that can walk, jump, and (in a way) gallop, too.
Given that Yamada is still a master student and even advanced robots (like Honda’s Asimo, for example) are only able to move in a slow… → Read More
A team of researchers at the University of Tokyo has developed a new type of optical atomic clock that boasts a 100 quadrillionth of a second accuracy (one quadrillion has 15 zeros). The optical lattice clock is the brain child of Professor Katori who says his device observes a million atoms simultaneously whereas conventional atomic clocks measure time by using single atoms. → Read More
Scanning or copying books will get a lot more comfortable in the future, thanks to the Ishikawa-Komuro lab at the University of Tokyo. The lab has already developed an awesome prototype of a camera that shoots “3D” pictures of pages while a human quickly flips through a book (see video below). → Read More
If there’s something solar energy as a technology needs, then it’s better and cheaper solar cells. And now Sharp has apparently made a step forward regarding the first factor: the company says it has developed a solar cell that has the world’s highest efficiency of 42.1%, breaking the record of Spectrolab of the US. → Read More
We have reported about a number of household robots from Japan in the past. Those machines covered areas like preparing sushi or pancakes, cleaning the house or the toilet. But Japan’s home robot makers haven’t been sleeping since, as you can see in the video embedded below. → Read More
As if the Akiba Pulse Box (the Twitter heart beat posting device) or the Bowlingual (the iPhone Twitter app for dogs) weren’t enough: Japan now boasts the world’s first tweeting satellite, the CubeSat XI-V. Developed by the Nakasuka Lab at the University of Tokyo, the pico satellite (four inches) is currently orbiting Earth and keeps posting [JP] various data to its followers on Twitter. → Read More
Just two weeks ago, we gave you m-synchy and m-neony, two super-advanced baby humanoids developed by a Japanese research institution. While those two robots were weird but looked rather harmless, baby robot Yotaro [JP], made by the University of Tsukuba in Japan, is really looking scary – just look at those pictures. → Read More
Wikipedia says Google is using a special camera that’s able to scan books at a rate of 1,000 pages per hour, which doesn’t sound bad at all (I am talking about Google Books of course, the company’s online collection of digitized books ). But now a team at the elite University of Tokyo has announced the development of a device that can scan a 1,000-page book in four minutes. → Read More
Here’s some more info on a Sci-Fi dream come true: As if looking at floating images in free space produced by mid-air displays isn’t cool enough, a research team from the University of Tokyo now makes it possible to even touch (kind of) those images with a newly developed projector system.
The so-called Touch Holography is essentially made of three parts: Provision Interactive Technologies’ Holo… → Read More
Baseball is a national sports in Japan and so it was just a matter of time for this baseball- and robot-crazy country to invent (industrial) robots that are able to play baseball. The 2-robot team can’t run around and doesn’t look human, but both machines are able to throw and bat the ball in quite an impressive way. → Read More
In cooperation with private businesses, Japanese students from various universities have developed a total of four small-sized satellites that are ready for launch in January on Japan’s H-2A rocket. The satellites were unveiled yesterday at a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency facility in Osaka. → Read More
The Information and Robot Technology Research Initiative, a research body of the prestigious University of Tokyo, has developed a small desktop robot that assists elderly people in managing daily tasks. The robot was developed in cooperation with various Japanese companies such as Toyota and Fujitsu. Mamoru-Kun (“Little Protector”) is a robot that is able to tell his owner where an… → Read More
Augmented reality, the concept of linking virtual objects and reality, is a concept that has led to some rather dubious results in the past (although it is used also in medicine, architecture and other “serious” fields for the good of mankind). Think Cybermaid Alice or the Tuttuki Box, which is – OK – not really based on augmented reality. The University of Tokyo… → Read More
Last year’s Grand Prize winning robot There should be no doubt that Japan is the world’s leading nation when it comes to the production and promotion of robots of all kinds. Each year, Nippon’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) chooses a handful of robots it thinks are especially cool and gives them the so-called Robot Award [JP]. The ministry yesterday announced the… → Read More
In cooperation with Toyota, the Information and Robot Technology Research Initiative, a research body of prestigious University of Tokyo, has developed a robot that handles household chores [JP, PDF]. The humanoid was demonstrated to Japanese media last week and was able to clean up rooms, put away dishes from tables, open and close doors and do the laundry. The so-called “Home Assistant… → Read More
Japan’s most prestigious educational institution, the University of Tokyo, and semiconductor company Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic), today unveiled an ultrasensitive sensor for robot use. The prototype was produced based on MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) nanotechnology and is as small as a bread crumb. It’s made of silicon and covered with elastic rubber. The… → Read More
According to yesterday’s print edition of the Nikkei, Japan’s largest business newspaper, researchers from Tokyo University developed proprietary software that can detect and quantify different kinds of food captured on photographs. The software analyzes colors and shapes to identify which type of food a person plans to eat. It’s also able to determine the size of bowls and… → Read More
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