Gadgety News

Fancy yourself a butler/maid/skivvy but can’t afford the wages?

Well, a one off payment of around $10,00 could score you the “Home Assistant Robot”.

The housproud bot is the product of joint research between Toyota and the University of Tokyo.  It stands 5-foot tall on its practical wheels and weighs in at 286lb.

The HAR uses five cameras and six lasers to map and navigate round your home and has fairly free movement - the neck alone can be moved in three directions while the arms move seven!

The helpful HAR can open and close doors, tidy up rooms, mop floors, do your laundry and put away dishes - all this without a marriage certificate :P  ~ducks out of the way of flying frying pans~

What impresses me is that mechanical home-help is clever enough to move furniture out of the way to clean floors and such and then place it back in its original position when the chore is done.

I’m not exactly sure how the robot learns from its mistakes but the programming seems to operate on simple “Magic Eye”-type principals distinguishing what’s different about a room from its original room image and correcting the differences accordingly.

You can get between 30 to 60 minutes of graft per charge and can be expected to arrive at homes in the next decade.

So, save a grand a year…………..

Asahi via CrunchGear

Although not really gadget or tech news, except for the tenuous link to a wi-fi connection, I thought it would be nice to get a little glamour and fashion on a Monday morning.

I’m talking about all those young Japanese ladies that lead super-hero style double lives: Mild-mannered students in plain-Jane uniforms by day; French maids, Furries, and Elegant Gothic Lolitas by night.

This crowd of twin-personalitied females rush about Tokyo, carting around suitcases full of makeup and costumes.

But Superman had a phone booth — where are schoolgirls supposed to suit up? Luckily, Japanese company COS-Pa has introduced tiny dressing rooms for women in the trendy Shibuya district, where 500 to 700 yen (roughly $5 to $6) buys 30 minutes of private mirror time, free Wi-Fi, beauty supplies, and a nonalcoholic beverage.

I reckon this would go down a storm in London as there’s a multitude of goths, glam rock types, etc who would probably use such a place - not everyone is comfortable leaving the office loos in pvc, rubber and mesh………………

Says COS-Pa’s owner firmly: “Ladies should not have to get beautiful in a bathroom.” - and what about us guys huh?  LOL

Art by Nevilk

News via Wired