Toshiba develops lifelike communication android - Video

Following in the footsteps of Hiroshi Ishiguro's eerily lifelike creations, Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has developed a lifelike communication android that can move its arms and hands smoothly and use Japanese sign language.

The android is a prototype that the company will continue to develop towards achieving a service robot able to assist people in the fields of welfare and healthcare.

The android will be showcased at CEATEC JAPAN 2014, which will be held from October 7 to 11.

The android has the appearance of a friendly young woman, an impression accentuated by blinking eyes and a warm smile.

At present, the android can mimic only simple movements, such as exchanging greetings and signing in Japanese, but Toshiba will integrate its wide-ranging technologies in areas including sensing, speech synthesis, speech recognition and robotic control to realize a more sophisticated social robot by 2020.

The goal is to design a companion for the elderly and people with dementia, to offer telecounseling in natural speech, communicate through sign language and allow healthcare workers or family members to keep an eye on elderly people.

Toshiba developed the android in collaboration with aLab Inc., Osaka University, Shibaura Institute of Technology, and Shonan Institute of Technology.

Drawing on technologies and expertise built up through the development of industrial robots, Toshiba created an algorithm to coordinate the movement of 43 actuators in the android's joints.

Shibaura Institute of Technology and Shonan Institute of Technology contributed robot driving and sensor-based motion teaching technologies, and aLab Inc. and Osaka University provided the technologies required to create a body with a human-like resemblance and emulate human expressions.

As a result, the upper part of the body has a human appearance and moves fluidly.

Toshiba aims to put the android into practical use as a receptionist or as an exhibition attendant within next year.

Women Android Robots look strangely human

Japanese android expert Hiroshi Ishiguro, second left, and National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation Miraikan Chief Executive Director Mamoru Mohri, second right, pose with a female-announcer robot called Otonaroid, right, and a girl robot called Kodomoroid during a press unveiling of the museum's new guides in Tokyo Tuesday, June 24, 2014. 

The latest creations from Osaka University Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro are the Otonaroid, the Kodomoroid and Telenoid, a hairless mannequin head with pointed arms that serves as a cuddly companion. 

The robots with silicon skin and artificial muscles were shown to reporters at Miraikan museum on Tuesday.

Credit Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi

The new robot guides at a Tokyo museum look so eerily human and speak so smoothly they almost outdo people, almost.

Japanese robotics expert Hiroshi Ishiguro, an Osaka University professor, says they will be useful for research on how people interact with robots and on what differentiates the person from the machine.

"Making androids is about exploring what it means to be human," he told reporters Tuesday, "examining the question of what is emotion, what is awareness, what is thinking."


In a demonstration, the remote-controlled machines moved their pink lips in time to a voice-over, twitched their eyebrows, blinked and swayed their heads from side to side. They stay seated but can move their hands.

In a clear triumph, Kodomoroid read the news without stumbling once and recited complex tongue-twisters glibly.

The robot, designed with a girlish appearance, can use a variety of voices, such as a deep male voice one minute and a squeaky girly voice the next.

The speech can be input by text, giving them perfect articulation, according to Ishiguro.

There were some glitches, such as the lips not moving at all while the robot spoke, or the Otonaroid announcer robot staying silent twice when asked to introduce itself.

National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation Miraikan Chief Executive Director Mamoru Mohri hands a female-announcer robot called Otonaroid a letter of appointment to assign as a guide at the museum as a girl robot called Kodomoroid, second left, looks on during a press event in Tokyo Tuesday, June 24, 2014. 

The latest creations from Japanese android expert Hiroshi Ishiguro are Otonaroid, Kodomoroid and Telenoid, a hairless mannequin head with pointed arms that serves as a cuddly companion.

AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi

But glitches are common with robots because they are delicate gadgetry sensitive to their environment.

Kodomoroid and the woman robot Otonaroid were joined at the demonstration by the minimally designed Telenoid, a mannequin head with pointed arms that serves as a cuddly companion.

The two life-size robots, which have silicon skin and artificial muscles, will be on display starting Wednesday, at Miraikan museum, or the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, in Tokyo, allowing the public to interact with them extensively.

Android robot Kodomoroid speaks during a press event at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation Miraikan in Tokyo Tuesday, June 24, 2014. 

The latest creations from Japanese android expert Hiroshi Ishiguro are a female-announcer robot called Otonaroid, a girl robot called Kodomoroid and Telenoid, a hairless mannequin head with pointed arms that serves as a cuddly companion. 

Kodomoroid read the news without stumbling once and regurgitated complex tongue-twisters glibly.

Credit Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi

Reflecting widespread opinion, Ishiguro said Japan leads the world in playful companion robots. But he acknowledged the nation was behind the U.S. in military robots.

Developing robots for more than 20 years, Ishiguro has made a point of creating robots that approximate the human appearance, including creatures that look like him. He has sent them to give overseas lectures.

His approach differs from some robotics scientists who say human appearance is pointless, perhaps creepy, and robots can look like machines, such as taking the form of a TV screen or a portable device.

Real Android Matsuken: Robots with real faces

Japanese actor Ken Matsudaira(R), clad in a robot suit, smiles with an android robot (L) in his likeness called Real Android Matsuken at a press presentation in Tokyo. 

The android robot was developed for an advertisement for Japanese telecom company KDDI. 

Picture: AFP PHOTO / YOSHIKAZU TSUNO

Frozen Android phones give up data secrets

Freezing an Android phone can help reveal its confidential contents, German security researchers have found.

The team froze phones for an hour as a way to get around the encryption system that protects the data on a phone by scrambling it.

Google introduced the data scrambling system with the version of Android known as Ice Cream Sandwich.

The attack allowed the researchers to get at contact lists, browsing histories and photos.

Cold start 
Android's data scrambling system was good for end users but a "nightmare" for law enforcement and forensics workers, the team at Erlangen's Friedrich-Alexander University (FAU) wrote in a blogpost about their work.

To get around this, researchers Tilo Muller, Michael Spreitzenbarth and Felix Freiling from FAU put Android phones in a freezer for an hour until the device had cooled to below -10C.

The trio discovered that quickly connecting and disconnecting the battery of a frozen phone forced the handset into a vulnerable mode.

This loophole let them start it up with some custom-built software rather than its onboard Android operating system. The researchers dubbed their custom code Frost - Forensic Recovery of Scrambled Telephones.

The Frost software helped them copy data on a phone that could then be analysed on a separate computer.

A chilled phone also helped their hacking project. Data fades from memory much more slowly when chips are cold which allowed them to grab the encryption keys and speed up unscrambling the contents of a phone.

PhD student Tilo Muller told the BBC that the attack generally gave them access to data that had been put in memory as users browsed websites, sent messages or shared pictures.

The researchers tested their attack against a Samsung Galaxy Nexus handset as it was one of the first to use Android's disk encryption system. However, they said, other phones were just as likely to be vulnerable to the attack. The team are planning further tests on other Android handsets.

While the "cold boot" attack had been tried on desktop PCs and laptops, Mr Muller said the trio were the first to try it on phones.

"We thought it would work because smartphones are really small PCs," he said. "but we were quite excited that the trick with the freezer worked so well."

The German research group is now working on defences against the attack that ensures encryption keys are never put in vulnerable memory chips. Instead they are only used in the memory directly attached to a phone's processor.

Fujitsu develops 'smart walking stick' to help the elderly

The stick has an LED display showing the which direction to go

A walking stick with built-in sat-nav has been developed by Japanese technology giant Fujitsu.

The Next Generation Cane is designed to help elderly people find their way, as well as monitor things such as heart rate and temperature.

Its location can also be followed online - and can be set up to send email alerts if it thinks the user may have fallen over.

Technology for the elderly is a key concern for Japan's ageing population.

Fujitsu, like several companies in the region, is looking at ways to help us remain mobile and connected later into our lives - potentially extending our ability to keep on working.

The prototype device, shown off at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, is equipped with various connection technologies such as GPS, 3G and wifi - and has an LED display on top of the handle.

If a change of direction is needed, the walking stick vibrates, and an arrow appears.

'Mature customer'
Although designed for the elderly, Fujitsu envisions it being used by any vulnerable person.

The stick sends data back to a host computer, so a carer or relative can see the location of the user, with additional data, such as heart rate, being streamed.

If the stick detects an irregular heartbeat, it can automatically contact emergency services.

The Stylistic smartphone runs a heavily modified version of Google Android

Also on show at MWC was Fujitsu's smartphone designed for the elderly - or the "mature customer", in their words.

The interface includes question marks at various locations to explain what each function is.

The phone is also able to change the frequency of audio to make it easier for older ears to hear.

There is as yet no planned release date for the Next Generation Cane, but the phone will launch in Europe in June, beginning with France.

Phonesat: On-board mobile phone to power low-cost satellite

A University of Queensland staff member is sending a satellite into space more powerful than the Curiosity Rover which recently landed on Mars.

The satellite, which measures 10cm x 10cm, is controlled by an on-board Android mobile phone five times more powerful than its larger space-faring cousin.

It also has a camera four times more powerful.

Michael Kehoe, a UQ staff member with Information Technology Services (ITS) and a final year student of the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ITEE) recently completed a five-week internship with NASA in California.

He was tasked with designing a satellite that used a mobile phone as its on-board computer, as part of a NASA initiative, PHONESAT.

"This is a proof of concept that will be used for a range of later designs," said Mr Kehoe.

"The satellite uses an attitude determinate control system (ADCS) written by fellow UQ graduate Jasper Wolfe to stop the satellite from spinning and alter its path in orbit," he said.

"Because it uses a common mobile phone as its central processor, I've been able to incorporate some really fun ideas into the satellite.

I'll be able to take temperature, accelerometer and heading readings using the phone's sensors and photos using the phone's camera."

Despite being controlled by a mobile phone, the satellite is not able to phone home.

"Unfortunately there's no reception in space, so we'll be using a high-powered radio link to receive data from the satellite," said Mr Kehoe.

Tracking of the satellite is being set up in America with NASA and in Australia, with the assistance of ITEE.

Tracking equipment on top of the Parnell building will monitor the satellite from launch on November 25 to re-entry 12 days later.

The project provides a proof of concept for low cost, rapid design iteration space craft. Total component costs for the satellite are $7800, opposed to Curiosity's $2.5 billion.

"An example of why this is important can be seen in the Curiosity Rover which landed in August on Mars," said Mr Kehoe.

"Design work started eight years ago and used cutting-edge technology at the time, but by launch date a common mobile phone had more processing power and better camera.

If we can shorten the time it takes to build spacecraft, we can decrease cost and increase the quality of what goes into space."

More information: open.nasa.gov/plan/phonesat/

Prototype Upper Body for a Child Robot "Affetto" - YouTube

Affetto moves flexibly thanks to 22 pneumatic actuators in its body (3 for neck, 7 for each arm, 1 for chest, and 4 for waist).

Researchers at Osaka University in Japan have built a prototype of a robotic baby, named Affetto.

The researchers aim to learn more about higher cognitive functions in humans by studying people’s interactions with their infantile android.

Visit http://www.youtube.com/ to see how its realistic face moves and also http://www.er.ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp/ to know about our project (JSPS grant-in-aid for specially promoted research).