The system in the video is called the Da Vinci system and it’s made by Intuitive Surgical from Sunnyvale in California. The system allows the surgeon to perform tasks in HD video while moving the robotic hands. COOL!

The art of “Dekotora” “or in simple English “pimping trucks” is a very know art in Japan. The truckers are decorating the trucks with neon lights, shiny paints and add everything that can be glued to the top of the truck. These trucks are used only as hobby trucks only and do not being used as commercial trucks.

The trend has probably begun in the ’70, and was inspired by a film called “Trucker”. The main character in the film drives a much customized truck.

Below are some great images of crazy trucks in Japan featuring amazing Dekotora.

Pictures: [Offbeat Earth]

The robot, 17 centimeter tall and 130 grams in weight, was forced to climb a 500 meters canyon as a demonstration by Panasonic for its new line of alkaline batteries.

The Evolta (combining “evolution” and “voltage”) batteries can be used to satisfy your climbing robot hunger for energy, with 20 percent more energy than Duracell and Energizer.

The batteries actually hold the Guinness book of records for being the most long lasting alkaline batteries. Panasonic claims that the batteries managed to flash a strobe light 277 times, while the existing alkaline and oxyride battery cells could set off 203 and 255 flashes, respectively.

Video after the break:

The batteries aren’t cheap and cost $5.40 for four in Japan, 15 percent higher than other batteries. They planned to reach more countries in the following months.

The robot accomplished the mission successfully within time of 6 hours and 45 minutes by using 530 meters of rope. Now Tom Cruise won’t have to worry about a stunt double, if he’ll ever want to this again:

Tom Cruise in a typical climbing.

Source: [Mainichi]

More about the Evolta batteries: [Techon]

We all know that Japanese loves robots and that the robots can do all kind of thing for them. They can be our best friends, decide what we watch on TV, or just be stupid and useless. But now they can also play for them in a concert.

Toyota showed a performance by introducing its line of robots in Aichi in Japan. The robots playing are the “DJ Robot” and the “Partner Robot” (standing). Partner robots are promised to be available to the general public in 2010, to help daily chores around the house and in hospitals.

The robots played some popular jazz songs like “Moonlight serenade” by Glenn Miller, “Stompin ‘at the Savoy” by Edgar Simpson, and “Take the ‘A’ Train” which is written by Billy Strayhorn from the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

In the mean time you can watch the complete video from the show after the break.

Well it’s certainly an advance from cleaning the toilet for us. But the robots seem just programmable and we would love to see a robot doing a free jam session. Next time you visit Tokyo, be sure to throw in spare change for that poor and lonely robot playing at the street corner.

More (Japanese translated): [Robot Impress]

Man best friend in Japan always had a different meaning. It started when Sony introduced Aibo back in 1999 to the world. Aibo was a cute robot dog, which knew how to perform basic operations such as walking and recognizing voice commands.

Unfortunately, Sony eventually decided to cease Aibo production after 170,000 dogs sold. Although Aibo was considered a huge hit in Japan. Now a group of Japanese scientists want to create a more advanced robot dog.

The dog, “Hon Hon”, was introduced last week at Chiba’s Techno-Frontier 2008 symposium which shows technology projects from around Japan. You can see Hon Hon in action right here:

And if you want, you can always enjoy an Aibo playing with a cat:

And if you are into robotic dinosaurs, you should really take a look at Pleo.

Source (Japanese Translated): [Robot Watch]

A new robot is supposed to clean urinals. The engineers at Mertec Engineering, the company that brought us this life-changing invention, claim that the robot can save eight liters of water while cleaning urinals. And it does this in only 10 seconds. If you happen to be in Kobe airport, you can watch the invention in action.

The robot is called “DASUBEE” that after the letters DCBA, which are ACBC backwards. The origin for that name is the reverse process which help the robot clean the urinals. No points on copywriting here.

Anyway, If you want it to help you with your cleaning chores, you should prepare to cough up 1,000,000 Yen, which are like $9,600. Let us save you the calculation, you can buy lot’s of brushes and detergent with this kind of money. In the mean time you can relax with a bunch of robots killing each other or some useless robots.

More: [3yen]

Source (Japanese): [Robot Watch]

So that’s we are not surprised to see a real battle that was held in Japan between two robot teams. Each of the robots was given a laser gun (don’t worry it was a non-lethal laser) and the teams were programmed to exterminate the over team.

The robots were fighting in Blazer tournament which was held in Fukuoka City, Japan. The robots are actually models built by hobbyists, so no actual robots were harmed in the process if you worried to well-being of the SkyNet messengers. The tournament was held on the surface of a model city and a smoke generator was even used, to get that nice futuristic and frightening effect.

You also get the video:

More information and images (translated): Robot Watch

The annual Meiwa Electronics annual Stupid Robot Contest, is held every year and the competitors must obey the following rules: the robot must be mechanical, It must be completely useless and it must make people laugh. Loyal readers of Japanite knows already that this can be applied to a lot of Japanese inventions throughout the year, without even a contest.

One of the robots, Papa Robopucho (picture above) is playing flags game with himself and sometime just cries for help. another example is this one, that I hope is inventor knows what it’s doing:

Last year you could see maid robots inspired from maid cafes in Akihabara (inventors probably haven’t heard about the new mom cafes trend), and a child robot that did push-ups.

This is also from last year:

So, What robot will you suggest to the competition? Share with us in the comments.

More info and videos (japanese): [Robot Watch] and [Bacarobo]

and more on the contests in [Meiwa]

Japanese people are crazy about robots. There are helper robots for lifting cargo, receptions robots, and of course fun robots like Sony’s Aibo (discontinued) or Honda’s Asimo. But researches in Toshiba have finally found the most important task for sophisticated robots to handle: change TV channels.

Meet ApriPoko, a voice operated robot with remote control capabilities for multiple home appliances. The robot sits in your living room quietly and try to detect Infra Red beams around him.

When it detects such beams, he kindly asks if you like him to learn this operation from the remote you are currently using. When you answer him something like “I’ve turned on the stereo”, it will memorize the commands and you’ll be able to command him to do this again, using only your voice.

So what do we got here in the end? a 5lb robot, that his only purpose in life is to respond to Japanese commands on their home equipment. It still in development, so no word on pricing yet, but you can assume it will be in the hundreds of dollars range. Our guess? Japanese shoppers will buy this like crazy, even they already have a hyper-remote control that can send commands to the entire systems in the house.

More on [Akihabara News]

It’s only in Japan that one robot can fight another robot and it’s seems right for everyone.

Robo-One, was held in Korakuen stadium in Tokyo today and drew much attention as every year.

112 robots started the championship and fell along the fights. South Korean robot Teakwon-V, took home the championship belt and $10,000 in the lightweight category.

King Kaiser, took the first place in the heavyweight category. Don’t think it was so hard. The robot was operated by a 12-years old and a 9-years old, the two sons of the engineer who developed the robot.

Video From Reuters

More [Robo-One]