Robots taking over everyday life of Japanese

Jan 21, 2010, 16:24 GMT

Tokyo - Shopping in Japan has become very high-tech. One supermarket in the central city of Kyoto has a robot that looks like it was an extra in a Star Wars film. It races between the shelves, collecting items on a shopping list given to it by an elderly lady. As she entered the supermarket the robot greeted her and even gave her a few suggestions on what to buy.

The robot is just one of the latest shopping assistants developed by the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR) in Kyoto. It is also an indication that Japan's robot revolution has extended beyond its factory floors into supermarkets, homes and hospitals.

Japan has about half of all the 800,000 factory robots in the world. Japanese robots clean floors, mix drinks, serve sushi, chop vegetables and even go on patrol as security guards.

Narito Hosomi is president of the company Toyo Riki in Osaka which has 50 years' experience in building industrial robots. Toyo Riki has now developed an automated machine that can help patients rehabilitate from illness - a useful development in a country where nursing staff are in short supply.

Another robot that looks like a character from a comic performs guard duties at a medical clinic where it greets visitors. 'My aim is to contribute to robots making life for humans easier in an age where our society is getting older,' says Hosomi. According to Japan's National Institute for Population and Social Security the proportion of over 65-year-olds in the country will be 31.8 per cent by 2030.

Norihiro Hagita, director of ATR's laboratory for robot research, says machines are playing an ever greater role in the lives of elderly people in particular. As this trend continues the Japanese are developing a completely new relationship with machines.

'If we can make that relationship a success, machines will have to react to humans exactly as a human being would do,' says Curt Stone of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Most people have learned how to operate machines and computers, says Hagita. Now, machines are starting to understand how humans act and what they say. 'Robot research means researching humans.'

Ordinary Japanese are also showing greater interest in robots. An international exhibition in Tokyo last November attracted 100,000 visitors in four days. 'Many Japanese people grow up today with comic book figures,' says Hosomi. 'I believe that will lead to a closer relationship and less fear when it comes to robots.'