Japan to open world's first robot shop
The world's first specialty robot shop will be opening in Nagoya Japan in October. The Mainichi Daily News is reporting that the "Robot Mirai Department" store will be offering about 1000 robots and robot accessories. State of the art, two-legged walking robots will also be sold.
The store's feature product will be the walking "Nuvo" home robot. It is 35 cm (13.8") tall and can dance and respond to human voices. The Robot Mirai Department store is part of a larger robot museum. Japan has several other robot museums that are sponsored by both governments and corporations.
Japan and South Korea are pouring billions of dollars into robotic research to help their aging populations. Unlike the task-based robots in the United States (like the Roomba), Japanese firms are focusing on developing robots emotionally acceptable to humans. The soccer playing Aibo robot dog and the dancing Qrio robots are just two examples.
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Humphrey Cheung was a senior editor at Tom's Hardware, covering a range of topics on computing and consumer electronics. You can find more of his work in many major publications, including CNN and FOX, to name a few.