Thursday, July 28, 2005

Geek's dreams come true ?

Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet - a female android named Repllee Q1. I am sure every geek in the world will now want a humanoid robot if his or her own !

Humanoid robots, or androids, as they are termed have been the subject of numerous movies and science fiction books for decades now. More often than not, these movies and books have taken a paranoid view of the state of affairs, in a society which houses both : humans as well as androids. The most obvious movies that come to mind are : Bladerunner, Matrix trilogy, AI, etc. Of course, Bladerunner is an adaptation of a Philip K Dick book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ? But then again, these are just products of fervent imaginations, and just shows the paranoia that is present deep down in society of something (be it our own creations, the androids) ususrping our place on the planet, and in society in general. We shall just have to wait and see...

Another major project that involves humanoid robots, is the famous Asimo project by the research scientists at Honda. Of course, the designers of Asimo have stated sometime ago that one of their goals is to create a group of humanoid robots that can take on the winners of the football world cup in the year 2050, and beat them ! Now that would be an interesting game to watch !

No comments: