Toyota Motor Corp.'s new violin robot performs during a press unveiling in Tokyo, December 6. Compared to a virtuoso, its rendition was a trifle stilted and, well, robotic. But Toyota's new robot plays a pretty solid "Pomp and Circumstance" on the violin. The 152-centimeter (five-foot)-tall all-white robot used its mechanical fingers to push the strings correctly and bowed with its other arm, coordinating the movements well. (AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara)TOKYO, Japan (AP), December 6, 2007:
Compared to a virtuoso, its rendition was a trifle stilted and, well, robotic. But Toyota's new robot plays a pretty solid "Pomp and Circumstance" on the violin.
The 5-foot-tall all-white robot, shown Thursday, used its mechanical fingers to press the strings correctly and bowed with its other arm, coordinating the movements well.
Toyota Motor Corp. has already shown robots that roll around to work as guides and have fingers dexterous enough to play the trumpet.
Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe said robotics will be a core business for the company in coming years. Toyota will test out its robots at hospitals, Toyota-related facilities and other places starting next year, he said. And the company hopes to put what it calls "partner robots" to real use by 2010, he said.
"We want to create robots that are useful for people in everyday life," he told reporters at a Toyota showroom in Tokyo.
Watanabe and other company officials said robotics was a natural extension of the automaker's use of robots in manufacturing, as well the development of technology for autos related to artificial intelligence, such as sensors and pre-crash safety systems.
Watanabe presented a vision of the future in which wheelchair-like "mobility robots" — also displayed Thursday — would offer "bed-to-bed" services to people, including the elderly and the sick, just like cars take people "door-to-door."
In a demonstration, a man got on the mobility robot, a motorized two-wheeled chair, then scooted around. Toyota showed how the moving machine could go up and down slopes and go over bumps without upsetting the person sitting on the chair because the wheels could adjust to such changes.
The Japanese government has been recently pushing companies and researchers to make robotics a pillar of this nation's business.
By Yuri Kageyama
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press.
