Which one is android???From the moment the robot walked on screen in Lost in Space one question has haunted the watchers of bad science-fiction television dramas: When do we get our robots, our mechanical soulless friends?
They're getting closer.
Japan leads Korea in producing the most realistic, human-like robots. A World Robotics Survey published in 2004 said that 600,000 household robots were in use by 2003 across the globe – most being simple robots like the automatic vacuum Roomba. Four million robots are expected to be in service around the world by the end of 2007.
But don't expect to be able to purchase one on sale today. When assistant androids will hit the mainstream market is still anybody's guess as robototics is in its pre-Atari stage. We can make a robot that moves and talks and walks. But it cannot yet function in the intuitive, unpredictable human world – except as a sideshow act.
Yet most researchers can envision functional robots within a decade, even if they're only available to the very rich. They'll be able to open our doors, prepare our meals, answer the phone. They'll be able to care for the sick, clean up toxic waste, fly military aircraft and search for mines. They'll work for us.
"We need a robot that can truly be useful in our world," says California's Stephen Keeney, one of the project leaders for Honda's cutting edge ASIMO project (more at the website world. honda.com/ASIMO).
[FOR MORE INFO]-http://www.thestar.com/Life/article/164480
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