The Evolta will swim, bike, and run to glory in the Ironman Triathlon this October.

For decades it’s been an honor, and a life-changing accomplishment to compete in the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii. 140+ miles (230km+) of swimming, biking, and running – most who enter the race simply hope to finish. Now, the smallest contestant to ever attempt the race is ready…and it’s not even human. Evolta, designed by Tomotaka Takahashi of Robogarage, is a 15cm tall humanoid robot that runs on just a few AA rechargeable batteries. This October, three versions of Evolta will hope to finish the three legs of Ironman on the same course as the humans follow every year. Watch Evolta prepare in the videos below. Can a tiny robot conquer Ironman? …And what does it mean if it can?

For those who may be concerned for this cute little bot’s safety, please rest assured – this isn’t Evolta’s first rodeo. It’s crossed the Grand Canyon on a rope, run from Kyoto to Tokyo, and finished the Le Mans race as well. Ironman is the toughest challenge yet for Evolta, but as you’ll see in the following trailer for the event, the robot has the right stuff for the job.

While the official trailer is exciting, it doesn’t actually give you a good idea of how Evolta will move during the race. To that end, here’s an extended video from the recent press event that announced the challenge. It’s in both English and Japanese (there’s a bilingual host) and you can see the swimming version of Evolta at 2:20, the biking model at 8:36, and the running type at 9:00:

While Evolta will follow the official Ironman course it will do so in a way that makes its success fairly likely. Humans are only given 17 hours or so to finish the race and will compete in one large group on October 8th. Evolta will take a week (or less) starting October 23rd. Seeing as Evolta is only one-tenth the size of a human it makes sense for it to receive ten times the hours to finish. There will also be three versions of the bot, one for swimming, one for biking, and one for running. Each will be outfitted with equipment (such as a floating harness) to make the journey possible. The real challenge then is whether or not the robot can withstand the elements and run continuously for so long. Whenever Evolta isn’t charging its batteries, it will be racing with no breaks. Whether or not Evolta succeeds should come down to if has enough power and resilience in those little AAs.

Of course, that’s the whole point of the challenge. Panasonic hired Takahashi to create Evolta to promote their batteries of the same name. On sale October 21st, the latest evoltas AAs will be able to be recharged up to 1800 times. I’m almost certain that Evolta will succeed in finishing the Ironman because Panasonic wouldn’t be paying for all this just to see it fail.

But let’s ignore the PR side of things and ask what Evolta’s competition in this race really means. I think it’s another sign that the robotics industry is gathering energy for major innovations in the next few decades. Engineers like Takahashi are creating humanoid robots that, while severely limited when compared to droids depicted in science fiction, are capable of truly impressive physical feats. Takahashi specializes in cute, toy-like humanoids like Evolta, some of which we’ve reviewed before. Other scientists are teaching full scale robots to run, dance, and even play soccer. Taken together these and the thousands of other humanoid robot projects showcase the incredible efforts underway to bring personal robots out of fiction and into reality.

This fall, Evolta will run, swim, and bike the Ironman race with conditions highly stacked in its favor. Give it a few years, however, and similar machines will need far fewer concessions in order to finish. In a few decades these robots will probably even be able to challenge humans directly. That’s the real message behind Evolta’s entrance into Ironman. For now this is just about batteries, but one day soon it will be about actually competing against humans. Industrial robots already have us beat at manufacturing goods, Evolta’s offspring could eventually be better at sports as well.

Better win the race now while you still can.

[image credit: Panasonic]
[video credits: Evolta World Channel (Panasonic)]
[sources: Evolta, Panasonic]

Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town will be built from the ground up with the latest green technologies, including solar panel roofing, smart household appliances, and shared usage of electric cars and bicycles.

Panasonic has just partnered with eight other companies to build an eco-friendly town that uses the latest energy-saving and generating technologies. The houses populating the new town are expected to have virtually zero carbon emissions. It is Panasonic’s hope that the new city, expected to be completed by March 2014, will change the way cities are built in Japan and, eventually, across the world.

Unfortunately, it won’t.

I have no doubt the new city, to be named Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town (SST), will be the greenest on Earth. But Panasonic should know that, in the end, the town will be more pipe dream than prototype. More helpful than creating a city with the latest in green technologies would be finding ways to incorporate those technologies in already existing city infrastructures. It’s a daunting task, and it’s an expensive task. Until we find cheap ways to replace shingles with solar panels, for example, we’re simply not going to do it.

That being said, you have to start somewhere.

Fujisawa SST will be built on a 47-acre vacant lot where a Panasonic factory once stood about 50 km west of Tokyo and will include aout 1,000 houses. Most of the technologies that will be on display at the town won’t be new, but their multi-layered incorporation will be.

By taking a ground up, green energy approach, Panasonic will be able to optimize the functionality and energy use of all the town’s equipment. Their energy management system will synergistically incorporate created energy, stored energy, and saved energy for maximal efficiency. The created energy will come from solar paneled roofing that will adorn all of the houses as well as public facilities. The energy harvested by the solar panels will then be stored in a new type of home-use lithium-ion storage battery that Panasonic developed itself. According to Panasonic the battery will be able to store enough electricity to power a house for a week. Efficient use of that energy will come from Panasonic’s ECO NAVI range of smart household appliances that sense their surroundings and adjust usage accordingly to reduce wasted electricity. The ECO NAVI refrigerator, for example, has four sensors: a door sensor to detect when it is open, an ambient light sensor that tracks the time of day the refrigerator is accessed, and ambient and interior heat sensors for optimal control of internal temperature. The refrigerator also learns the eating schedule of the household. In times of low access, such as during the workday or at night, it maintains a less cool temperature. Compared to conventional refrigerators, the ECO NAVI fridge reduces energy usage by up to 10 percent.

The developers aim to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the town by 70 percent compared to 1990 levels.

The layout of city blocks will be planned with the surrounding landscape in mind. A “green axis” of parks and vegetation will line the main roads and form wind paths. Solar panel design will be artistically rendered to blend with the town’s lush green landscape. And, of course, the car of choice for Fujisawa SST residents will run on electricity. Because they will require some electricity from an outside source when enough can’t be generated from solar energy within the town, the cars won’t be completely free of emission. But a city of electric cars well definitely minimize the carbon footprint compared to their gas-guzzling counterparts. Home garage and public facilities will be equipped to promote electrical vehicle ownership and sharing in Zipcar fashion. Currently under consideration is an alternative plan that does away with garages altogether. In their place would be sprawling yards and separate parking areas would hold the cars to be shared by the families in 10 to 20 homes. Electric bicycles will also be available for sharing among residents in an effort to further decrease the town’s carbon footprint.

In an effort to make Fujisawa SST both energy-efficient and safe, many of Fujisawa SST’s public spaces, such as parks, will have storage battery systems accessible by the public in the event of a catastrophe. Given Japan’s high risk of earthquakes, publicly available energy would be crucial in the event residential energy stores were destroyed.

Fujisawa SST’s optimally designed infrastructure will be connected by a power and information network, part of Panasonic’s comprehensive solutions. A Smart Energy Gateway system will connect the energy creation and storage devices as well as appliances on a single network for easy control at in-home displays. Field testing is currently underway for energy-saving technologies to be used in the town’s stores. Energy saving and storage equipment is being developed for efficient use of wind, light, heat and water. Check out the idyllic artistic renderings of the town in the computer-generated tour below.

Fujisawa SST’s timing couldn’t be better for Japan. March’s devastating earthquake knocked out one of Japan’s major sources of energy: the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. Another plant, the Hamaoka plant near central Japan is also being shut down due to safety concerns, further pinching energy resources. To minimize energy demands, the Japanese government has urged its people to save as much as it can. Companies were asked to cut their electricity use by 15 percent. At home, people are being asked to maintain a room temperature of 28 degrees Celcius (82 degrees Fahrenheit), use fans rather than air conditioners and to not leave gadgets plugged in.

Spurred largely by the earthquake, Japan’s Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, recently outlined a new future energy policy for his country. The policy calls for increased emphasis on solar and wind power. In addition the government plans to invest in future, as yet unrealized innovative technologies. In light of the country’s new green initiative, Panasonic is aggressively moving to position itself at the forefront of a market they expect to flourish in the coming years. The company acknowledges that if they stay exclusively in the business of audiovisual and white goods then their future growth will be limited. In the Fujisawa SST spirit of combining capabilities into a single multi-faceted toolset, Panasonic last year acquired Sanyo, one of Japan’s leading electronics companies. The acquisition turned Panasonic into Japan’s second largest electronics company after Hitachi, Ltd. The acquisition enabled Panasonic to develop the lithium-ion batteries planned to be used in the Fujisawa SST homes.

The Fujisawa SST project is a breath of fresh air in a world where efforts to go green are sadly limited. Unfortunately, the main impetus for a new city is the same reason green technologies are slow to take hold in old cities: it is much more feasible to incorporate green technologies into new infrastructures from the start than it is to retrofit old ones. For most buildings and houses, the cost of major remodeling with an already expensive technology is prohibitive. Panasonic’s “ground up” idea is a great one, but the world needs something better. I don’t think New York is going to be rebuilt anytime soon.

[image credit: Panasonic]
[video credit: PansonicNewsPortal via YouTube]
image: Fujisawa SST
video: Fujisawa SST

Power Loader Light

If you’re like me you grew up on cartoons and scifi books with heroes that fought evil in robotic walking battle suits. You probably imagined that one day in the future you’d be riding around in one of those exoskeletons kicking butt and taking names. Well, that day is half way here, but even a reduced version of your dream isn’t going to come cheap. Active Link, an offshoot of Panasonic, has officially announced that it will be selling a lower body exoskeleton that will augment your carrying capacity by up to 40 kg (88 lbs). The Power Loader Light (PLL) has a price tag of ¥18 million or around $230,000 USD. That’s a little outside my budget, but if you’re a researcher in human-machine interaction or brain-machine-interfaces, you could qualify for the sales price of just ¥9 million. I doubt many will purchase the PLL for home use, but that 50% discount may mean Active Link’s exoskeleton could become a popular platform for scientific research in the near future.

The Power Loader Light is a stripped down version of Active Link’s full body exoskeleton called, you guessed it, the Power Loader. That complete robotic suit has huge claw like arms and can increase lift by 100 kg (220 lbs). It’s also nowhere near ready for market. By stripping out the arms, the PLL focuses simply on transferring weight from the operator to the legs of the exoskeleton. The motorized limbs can bear their own weight (a considerable 38 kg) and provide an additional 400 N (40 kg or 88 lbs) of upwards force at slow speeds. For a commercially available device, that’s pretty awesome.

The PLL seen without its user. Research groups can buy the system at half price and fully customize its software (Linux based) or its hardware as they see fit. They must also publish in the first year and repeat results in three.

To put that in perspective, however, it’s less than half what the HULC exoskeleton can handle. The HULC, developed for the US Army by Lockheed Martin, can lift 200 lbs (91 kg) and is looking to develop a battery that will let it run for 72 hours. No news yet on how long the PLL can move between charges. Of course, there’s also no news on the price of the HULC; it could end up costing millions. A better comparison for the PLL may be the Rex exoskeleton designed to help paraplegics walk on their own. The Rex retails for around $150,000, but relies on its operators using joysticks to control its movements. The PLL uses six-axis force sensors in the pedals to anticipate where the user wants to go (the HULC has a similar control scheme).

The more I think about it, the more I believe that Active Link’s exoskeleton is probably best suited to stay in the lab. Research groups can use the walking platform to explore how humans and machines interact and help design the next generation of robotic suits. The PLL runs on Linux 2.6, so it should be flexible enough for scientists to experiment with new control schemes, maybe even direct brain interfaces. Then there’s the 50% discount that Active Link is offering. I’m sure that will be pretty enticing.

Whenever I see a press release about an exoskeleton I get really excited. Those childhood dreams about mecha suits keep jumping to the front of my mind just in time for reality to bat them back down. The truth is that the PLL, HULC, Rex, and other exoskeletons we’ve seen are all cool looking, but much too expensive to be available to the average person. They aren’t amazing enough (where are the lasers, goddammit!) to justify their purchase as a luxury toy, and they aren’t cheap enough to be used in industry or medicine. The latter is the real crime. Cheap medical exoskeletons could make a big impact in the care of the elderly. A nurse could use a robot suit to lift a patient, or a debilitated patient could wear one to help them live a normal life. Modern exoskeleton technology simply isn’t there yet. (Even the Rex seems mainly suited to young healthy adults who just happen to be paraplegic). But give it time. As we discover better batteries and more efficient motors, the power of these robotic suits will only increase. For now the PLL should stay in the lab, but the dream of your own personal robot suit lives on.

[image credits: Active Link]
[source: Active Link PLL Release (PDF in Japanese)]

Warn your stylist: robots are ready to take over the hair salon.

I remember back in the 1980s, water was like a scifi robot’s kryptonite. Now, if you splash a bot it’ll probably just assume you want it to give you a shampoo. At the recent International Home Care and Rehabilitation Exhibition 2010 (HCR 2010), Panasonic unveiled two new technologies to help healthcare workers tending the sick and elderly. The first was a robot washstand that will automatically clean a patient’s hair from start to finish. The device uses sixteen ‘fingers’ to gently massage the scalp. It has a 3D scanner so that it can use the correct pressure and comes with memory so that it can recall the preferences of each individual. Panasonic also demonstrated their new Roboticbed, which is actually both a bed and wheelchair. The device transforms from one shape to the other, minimizing the risk that a patient will fall or be dropped moving from bed to chair. Both devices are aimed at giving healthcare workers more free time to focus on health rather than mundane tasks. Watch the Panasonic presentations at HCR 2010 in the videos below. The shampooing robot looks pretty amazing – I wonder if it’s taking appointments?

Another video showing a close up of the shampooing process:

We’ve already seen various robotic lifting devices from Panasonic aimed at medical applications, including a wheelchair-bed transformer. This new version’s pneumatic manual controls are a good addition, giving healthcare workers more flexibility in how the platform can be used. It’s hard to hear in the following video, but the bed also makes an audible announcement (using a simulated voice) as well as flashing LED lights when the wheelchair is fully docked back into the bed station.

The world population is getting older, and an increasing share of our economy will need to be focused on tending to elderly populations in the decades ahead. Japan is particularly concerned with this trend, and unsurprisingly has focused on robotics as the solution. I’m curious, however, as to how well these systems will be accepted by the elder population at large. Will they simply be yet another series of mechanisms, like motorized wheelchairs and automatic doors, that are adopted easily? Or will the increased capabilities of robots require patient’s to make a leap of faith? Beds that transform into wheelchairs are actually fairly mundane, even if they are motorized. Putting your head in a sink and having your hair washed by a machine – that’s different enough to give someone pause. And it’s probably only a matter of time before a more elaborate system could be built to provide a full shower. Robotic Elder Care Washers …try not to remind Grandma that you use a similar machine to clean the family car.

[image credit: Panasonic]
[video credits: K. Moriyama]
[source: Panasonic Press Release]

3D TV...I'm not that impressed. It's likely to fail before it succeeds.

Here’s an offer for you: I’ll give you some of the most amazing entertainment you’ve ever seen, and I’ll even put it in your own home. What’s the catch? High prices, limited content, and some of the most horrendously dorky and inconvenient glasses in the world. I’m talking about the coming “3D TV revolution” that was the talk of CES this year. All the big name companies for TV production (Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, LG, Panasonic, etc) had at least one 3D TV set at CES, and most had entire regions of their floor space dedicated to promoting the innovation. Panasonic’s VT25 series won Best in Show and will likely be hitting retailers near you in the second quarter of this year. So, the question we’re all asking here: is 3D TV worth it? No, not yet. Now, that’s just my opinion. It happens to be right, of course. If you want to know why, read on.

The Technology

First, I should explain what you’re getting. 3D technology relies on getting a separate image into your left and right eye. These two images get overlapped in your brain and with the correct differences between the two, the overlapped image appears to have depth. In 3D movies, the projector will produce the two images with differently polarized light. You then wear special (and flimsy) glasses that have different polarizing films on the left and right eye. This blocks the appropriate image and lets you get that separated-then-overlapped 3D effect in your head. Cool beans.

Now, some 3D TVs work in this same manner. But Panasonic, Toshiba, and others took the process to another level. Instead of passive polarized lenses, they’ve created special glasses that can shutter each eye separately. So, the TV talks to the glasses and instead of placing two images next to each other in the space on the screen, the set runs them alternating in time. You see right, then left, then right…at 240 Hz. This produces a crisper 3D effect with all the fluid motion you expect from your HD TV. Again, pretty cool.

The problem is that high speed shuttering glasses cost money. Probably around $50 or so a pop. And every person who wants to watch 3D TV has to wear them. You can’t have half the audience with and half without. Sans glasses, the specially alternating 3D image is strangely blurred. When I stared at it too long at CES I got a headache. Even with the traditional movie theater system, the view without glasses is not watchable. If you want to love 3D TV you have to learn to love 3D glasses.

Expensive accessories are a problem with many technologies. The cost for glasses is compounded by the increase costs of the sets themselves. Now, most companies are already targeting the 50+ inches sets for 3D conversion, so adding thousands of dollars to the price won’t be so noticeable to some of those buyers. Still, running at 240 Hz, and HD takes high-end electronics and you’re going to have to pay for them if you want to enjoy the new technology.

The Content

The question is, will you really enjoy 3D TV? I’ve seen my fair share of 3D movies. Most were pretty bad. I still quote Beowulf to amuse my friends, and the less said about Journey to the Center of the Earth, the better. (Why must you profane my precious science, Brendan Fraser, why?)Avatar, however, is selling like butter-dipped hotcakes, and many children’s movies do really well with the 3D add-on. UP and Coraline were both successful and enjoyable.

But we’re not talking about 3D movies, we’re talking about 3D TV. Yes, more and more movies are being watched in the home, but it’s broadcast television that dominates the use of home sets. CES was awash with sports, video games, and nature shows that have been upgraded to 3D. Toshiba’s Cell TV even has a (semi) universal 2D to 3D converter so that you can watch everything with the new effect. I expect other developers will have similar converters soon if they don’t already. Watching those TV demos I was completely unimpressed. 3D TV is cool looking when someone has gone to the trouble to really plan each 3D point of view. Most of the TV I saw at CES looked like a pop-up book version of what I see at home. The trouble is that you really only get two layers in most 3D videos. A truly rounded image takes finesse.

The truth is I’m just not that enamored with the actual 3D experience. Major television companies aren’t either, yet. DirectTV is still on the fence about whether or not it will provide 3D for its 25+ million subscribers. Sports producers are looking into it, as are video game companies, but many are waiting for formatting issues to get resolved. Like the HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray debacle, 3D TV has several competing protocols and standards. Without a single uniform format, 3D TV can’t get out of the starting gates. Expect there to be stuttering and infighting while everyone decides on which standard will become dominate.

The Future

Still, I don’t think that 3D TV will die. It comes back to movies. 3D Blockbusters are selling well in theaters, and home DVD/Blu-ray purchases are now a vital part of the film industry. Studios need to leverage their 3D movies into the homes to make money. TV companies want to sell more TVs. All entertainment media outlets want an edge on their competitors. That’s financial pressure that will push 3D TVs into production even if they don’t face overwhelming public support. So 3D TV seems like it’s fated to come to market in force.

But I think it will fail at first, and continue to fail for a while. High prices and limited content will keep the niche for 3D TV fairly small. Then it will expand slowly into DirectTV or other specialty television media (high end cable?) Video games, which more often tolerate a limit on the number of people who can watch a screen at one time, may be at the forefront of getting people to purchase the more expensive sets. Eventually, and we’re talking years here, the technology will advance to where you don’t need glasses, and where the 3D image is not just two interposed layers. When the image you see isn’t just a moving pop-up book, but a true three dimensionally round object, people will flock to a new kind of television. At the same time, content will be of a high enough quality that 3D TV will seem very appealing.

That is, of course, supposing that we’re still all interested in TV by that point. The Internet is starting to change our taste in media. And there are technologies, like augmented reality, which could come in with a completely new hardware paradigm and take us away from TV screens and have us all wearing our own head mounted displays. I guess I’ll say this: If nothing better comes along, you’ll eventually want a 3D TV. That’s about as luke-warm of an endorsement as I can give, but hey, it’s a luke-warm technology.

[photo credit: Aaron Saenz]

CES is all about the biggest, brightest, flashiest displays. Kudos to Samsung for its towers of LED TVs.

Integration. Dimensionality. Connectivity. Those were the three key concepts that exhibitors wanted to impress upon me as I walked the floors of CES 2010. The gadgets of this year and next were going to combine previous innovations, bring them into our 3D world, and connect us with people everywhere. The Consumer Electronics Show is the forum for getting your cutting edge technology into the hands of buyers for major retailers all over the world. As such, it’s full of remarkable innovations and cool demonstrations as well as hype and delusions of grandeur. Enjoy the following photo safari through the booths of CES 2010.

Sony, Samsung, LG, and Toshiba were all displaying 3D TVs...but it was Panasonic that won best in show. It will give us 3D HDTV (using special glasses) sometime in the second quarter of 2010.

Speaking of TV...Samsung and others were touting systems that would integrate internet information into broadcasts. The right side of the screen demos how play predictions for a football game could be displayed right next to the game itself.

Samsung, and others, demonstrated how multiple linked monitors could lead to a more immersive experience.

Flying Parrot's AR-Drone outside was awesome. Pricing is still unavailable but a rep did say it would be available in the US this year. Can't wait.

LG used Microsoft Surface to demo some of the cool features of the Chocolate Touch phone. No news on when the UK watch phone will make it to the US.

LG and Ncomputing were both pushing versions of "networking monitors". These ethernet connected screens could allow you to run 30+ work stations off one PC. Hence the $70 "PC".

The Peregrine glove from IronWill transforms your fingers into the keys of a keyboard. Conductive wires lace the glove allowing you to form circuits depending on where your thumb and finger connect. A cool bit of hardware for gaming at $150, and it may have applications in other fields.

Microvision had a Dr. Evil look alike pimping its new Pico Projector.

The Date Check mobile App from Intelius lets you use a phone number or email address to perform some pretty invasive checks of people's backgrounds. Free to download, $5-$50 to see if your prospective mate has a criminal history.

Electric cars are making a comeback!

Kia may soon integrate haptic dials into its cars for radio and other non-driving applications. Played with this thing for a while. It works really well.

Rhythm Touch's Acu-therapy was fairly popular among the CES attendees whose dogs were barking after walking all day. I'm all for alternative medicine, but these guys set off my BS detector.

Can't afford an Actroid? Kokoro makes the iFairy to cheer you up or say hi to guests as they enter a building.

I finally got to pet a Paro. Amazingly soft and cuddly. My psyche definitely felt healed.

Goodbye CES...see you in 2011. (Taken via the Pico Projector from Microvision)

[photo credits: Aaron Saenz]

High quality video conferencing is cool, and it’s horrifically expensive. A business quality Cisco Telepresence connectivity system costs $34k to $340k last time we checked. Typical broadband connections are more than enough to support adequate video calls, so why will consumers pay to upgrade to a new system? I don’t think they will. Especially when mobile phones are getting better quality video calls. Even if telepresence comes into your home, its not quite certain where it will be. Tablet computers and netbooks are going to become much more popular, and Skype, working with LG and Panasonic, is looking to bring high fidelity video calls to your TV. Polycom, a major Cisco competitor, is working with IBM to get into the home telepresence market as well. It’s still anyone’s game, though Cisco’s close partnerships with telecommunications companies (and its production of routers and switches) may give it a synergistic edge. As a consumer, I’m not sure I would pay for high-quality video conferencing until the price comes down significantly. Clear and crisp is nice. Cheap and dirty is better.

Panasonic's new robots are kick butt healthcare assistants: like this bed that transforms into a motorized chair.

As populations age in industrialized countries all over the world, the elderly may turn to robots to help them with chores and mobility. Panasonic recently held a press conference in Kadoma, Osaka to demonstrate some of their new robotic systems aimed at home use, and assisting the elderly. These devices include a kitchen arm, a motorized lifter/mover, and a bed that turns into a wheelchair. The electronics giant announced that it wanted to reach 100 billion yen (~$1.1 billion USD) in robot sales in 2015/2016, thus becoming profitable in the field at that point. By focusing on assistance bots rather than humanoid machines, Panasonic hopes to build devices which have a ready consumer base. Stocks (TYO:6752) rose briefly on the news. Check out the cool video from IDG and Newtork World.TV after the break.

Japan, like the United States and most other nations in the West, faces increasing healthcare expenses as a large post war generation continues to age. There will certainly be automated systems that will augment the care provided by doctors, nurses, and other professionals. Improved monitoring devices, and various remote controlled probes will increase the efficiency of medical teams. Just as important, we may see an increase in technologies that allow patients to help themselves such as reliable online medical information. Assistance robots would allow you to direct your own care to some extent, or at least manage the day to day tasks that would normally require a human caretaker. The elderly could turn to robotics to guarantee a greater sense of freedom and self reliance.

The Panasonic robots are very cool looking but not all of them are really unique in their performances. Kitchen work is well within the capabilities of a Motoman robot or WAM arm, and the motorized wheelchair attachment is certainly nothing new. Having a bed with a TV that transforms into a chair…now that is pretty amazing, I have to admit. I can see how that could greatly assist a bedridden individual with their mobility and quality of life. Eventually, Panasonic says that it will offer the bed-wheelchair robot for around 1 to 1.5 million yen (more than 11,000 USD) when it eventually hits full scale production.

As the second largest electronics company in the world (sometimes first depending on how Sony is performing) Panasonic is depending on its in-house expertise to give it the edge in producing consumer orientated robots for all age groups. Rechargeable batteries, control interfaces, audio/visual outputs – these things all take time and effort to perfect but Panasonic already has teams formed to address these issues in other products. In the motorized lifter/mover/wheelchair engine, they utilize a pre-existing electric bike motor, cutting down on research and development costs. It will be interesting to see if the Panasonic “we kind of do this stuff already” approach will out perform Honda’s “building robots from the ground up” attitude.

While many of these robots aren’t likely to see distribution until well into the next decade, Panasonic already has plans to start sales on a dispensary robot next year. That bot will provide the correct (pre-determined) medications when a patient’s ID number is supplied. Robots represent a large capital investment for long term savings in labor, so forward looking healthcare providers may act soon to test if the devices will help mitigate the looming aging population crisis. As someone who relishes human contact, I’m not sure if I would feel as comfortable with robotic aides as I would with a living caregiver. Still, as seen with Hanson Robotics, the automatons of the future may be more personable than the silent assistants we see Panasonic developing now. I guess it all depends on whether or not Grandma learns to love the machines.

[Screen Capture and Video Credit: IDG and Network World.TV]