Honda’s cute new robot concepts only want to help
What does the future of robotics look like? Nobody knows for sure, but Honda seems pretty certain it’ll be cute. At CES next January, the Japanese manufacturer will show off a quartet of new robot concepts, including a companion bot, an autonomous off-road vehicle, and a pair of “mobility” concepts — for moving people and things about. Two of them have actual cute faces, and the other two are at least extremely non-threatening.
But why make robots that look like this? In Honda’s case it’s because the company sees the future of robotics as rooted in human interaction. Honda’s bipedal Asimo is the face (and body) of the firm’s robotics research, but its other major products include the Uni-Cub, a wheel you sit down on a steer by leaning;...