The Robot Awards

The Japanese Government has set a robot award to celebrate the mostest excellentest robots in the country -

The award has four sectors — robots for services, industrial use and special purposes such as rescue work following disasters, as well as robots manufactured by small and medium-sized companies. From among all robots submitted, 10 will be selected as outstanding in the first round, then, of the 10, one will be chosen for the grand prize.

THere’s no confirmation of what exactly the award ceremony will entail - I’m expecting a swimsuit section, some video footage of the robots doing volunteer work in their respective local communities, hopefully some interviews in which the robots will be free to put forward their views on how to save the environment, stop the spread of AIDs and so on.

I’m a little worried about the effect any Tom Hanks style acceptance speeches might have on electronic equipment, but I’m sure the robot designers will have thought of that, and will not let the robots watch any Tom Hanks prior to the big event. (Good advice for all of us there.)

Original story at CrissCross.

Saturday, August 12th, 2006 Japan, Japanese News Trackback URL for this entry