mediajunk

I was watching a Discovery Channel documentary on robotics this morning and learned about the Asimo robot.

I'd heard about it before, but Asimo is much more advanced than I'd realised. Developer Honda seems to be serious about creating a market for humanoid robots.

So, indeed, is the Japanese government who, worrying about the ageing population (and without a significant pool of immigrants, who provide a cheap labour supply in other developed countries), provides funding for the R&D of "assistive technologies" to help the aged.

It turns out that Asimov was in the news recently, as he was the "ambassador" in a state visit to the Czech Rebuplic.

The video clip of the event (requires RealPlayer), from the BBC site, is fun to watch.