Ghost in the Shell Tachikoma Robot

 

This broke my heart when I found out that this robot is just used to promote the upcoming Ghost in the Shell DVD "Solid State Society". Crud, I was hoping that it was a general release item (check out its specs). The robot, or ‘tachikoma‘ as it’s called in the series, is a police robots that is fast, agile, and sports quite a personality. Imagine a hyper Japanese school girl in the armored body of a high speed, gun toting robot. Cool, eh? Yeah! Well this robot model is about foot and a half long and has 19 degrees of movement. There are a few videos of it moving here and here. By the way, the designer of these guys is Tomotaka Takahashi. He’s kind of a God amongst robot designers. If you wondering why you should go have a look at some of his creations.

[via Robot Gossip]

US Offers Japan 80 Patriot Missiles

Patriot missile launching
Humm… ya know, this isn’t going to go well with Japan’s neighbors. If there’s one thing that that regions can’t stand is it’s an armed Japan. I wonder how this will play out.

 The United States has offered Japan up to 80 more Patriot interceptor missiles following North Korea’s rocket tests last month, a news report said Thursday. Japan’s Defense Agency intends to take up part of the offer as it accelerates the planned deployment of a missile defense system, the Kyodo News agency reported, citing unnamed sources.

US Offers Japan 80 Patriot Missiles

D2V-ZN – Programmable Robot Toy Mech

 Toy robot mech

 
Two feet tall, responds to voice commands, built in camera, user programmable, reverse chicken legs… Wow, I’ll take one of these over a RoboSapien any day. It does need some end effectors so it can grip things but other than that its darn cool. Look for this in stores soon for around $300US. Not a steal but far less costly than the KHR-1 type robots out there, those still cost over a thousand bucks.

[via Robot Gossip]

 Korea to Unveil Programmable Robot in October 

I-Hacked.com

I-Hacked

 

I love this site, mostly because it give you ideas. Yeah, those can be dangerous can’t they? You just can’t let your toaster toast toast, it has to tell time, read the news for you and suggest what tie to wear to work. Ok, that’s a bit extreme but its not beyond what you can find on this information packed site

 

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