Electric Babies
I have to admit that I am a little jealous of the technological vision of Japan. When it comes to integrating robots into our daily lives, the Japanese (and Chinese) are light years ahead of us in Waco, Texas (if not all of the US). From the very first toy robots to the emotionally expressive robots, there is a passion for robots that Americans lack. Currently, Japan is preparing to send a "human-like" robot into space. Vstone of Japan put together the first ever robot marathon race called "Robo Mara Full." Roboticist (a new word for me) Minoru Asada has created a table top robot baby head which imitates realistic human baby expressions. Having had a real child for a number of years, I am not certain that this is something I would ask for for Christmas, but it is pretty cool none the less. All of this is wonderfully weird and it tells me that when a Japanese student takes time to dream of the future, she sees a very different world than I do. I have not dreamed of a world where machines are human.
I have to admit that I am a little jealous of the technological vision of Japan. When it comes to integrating robots into our daily lives, the Japanese (and Chinese) are light years ahead of us in Waco, Texas (if not all of the US). From the very first toy robots to the emotionally expressive robots, there is a passion for robots that Americans lack. Currently, Japan is preparing to send a "human-like" robot into space. Vstone of Japan put together the first ever robot marathon race called "Robo Mara Full." Roboticist (a new word for me) Minoru Asada has created a table top robot baby head which imitates realistic human baby expressions. Having had a real child for a number of years, I am not certain that this is something I would ask for for Christmas, but it is pretty cool none the less. All of this is wonderfully weird and it tells me that when a Japanese student takes time to dream of the future, she sees a very different world than I do. I have not dreamed of a world where machines are human. 
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