The name for the tower will be “Tokyo Sky Tree”, or Tōkyō Sukai Tsurii ,and it will be finished in 2011. 610 meters of concrete and steel, in the heart of Tokyo. If you also want a tower like this in your back yard, you should prepare some money. The cost of the tower is estimated in 60 billion yen or 555 million dollars (if you still believe in the dollar).

For those of you that are concerned what will happen to the tower during earthquakes, you should know that in the bottom of the tower you will find a five tier concrete “pagodas” that are supposes to withstand very strong earthquakes.

The tower will have some restaurants in the top, and a TV station – Nothing crazy or weird. What brings us to believe that until the tower will be completed there will be more weird news about robots that will live in the upper floor. We expect no less from the Japanese.

In the mean time you can enjoy more images (click to enlarge):

And a view from the top of the Tokyo Sky Tree

Here is a video of the name unveiling ceremony:

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]