October 12, 2005
The London Aquarium has a special new attraction: A Cyber Fish, inspired by a common carp, which is able to avoid objects and swim around a specially designed tank. The fish is sized at 50cm long, 15cm high and 12cm wide and is able to swim at a speed of 50 cm per second. The speed has been reduced to prolong battery life though. The fish are reported to move very lifelike, and people tend to think they are real animals.
[via Science News Daily]
March 19, 2005
Japan based NEDO offers a variety of robots. One of the more remarkable ones is the reception robot ACTROID, who actually looks like a japanese woman. It’s purpose is to sit at a company’s reception desk and give advice to visitors. ACTROID is said to communicate in a natural way in Chinese, Korean, English and Japanese, with realistic looking gestures and facial expressions.
Update: Allthough this company seems to be on the cutting edge with their technology, their PR is horrible. Obviously the link above no longer works (as someone pointed out in the comments), and on their homepage I couldn’t even find any indication they are producing robots at all.
