Robots that think, move like humans and fight our wars–Real Terminators–may now be possible. At leading universities and covert government labs, robots are now being developed in man’s image; cyborgs with superhuman strength, machines that may eventually be able to make decisions, even kill on their own. But will these very robots designed to protect us ultimately turn on their masters?
Rise of the Robots. When I first heard about this episode of That’s Impossible while watching Ice Road Truckers, I just had to watch to see where we were with military robotics… and where we may be headed. Real Terminators is second episode of the That’s Impossible series, which includes other topics like invisibility, immortality, and “weather warfare.” I managed to catch the Tuesday (July 14) night premiere of Real Terminators, while they repeated the episode early Wednesday morning. History won’t rebroadcast Real Terminators until Saturday, July 25 @ 3pm, so make certain to have your TiVos programmed to record it if you can’t watch it on time, or there’s always the Torrent route.
Real Terminators shows how robot combat has evolved to its near-current state, and what other robot technologies and breakthroughs can affect what the battlefield mechs will be like. Hint: It won’t be like BattleBots or Robot Wars.
You might think that this is a scale model of a WWI-era tank, but this little bugger is the father of all battlefield robots. Click the image to see the Wikipedia article about it.
Humble beginnings. Battlefield robots actually got their start in WWII, thanks to Nazi Germany. They used a remote controlled tank-bot called the Goliath tracked mine, which was driven to its target and detonated. It was considered a failure due to the control cables being easily cut or damaged and the vehicle itself being too lightly armored, but the Goliath has since become something of an inspiration to future war-bots… though it would take some sixty years after the first tracked mines were produced before battlefield robots would begin to emerge with the SWORDS robots. But robots were already in the air, thanks to the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle.
The Next Big Step is to get the drones out of the sky and back on the ground, but without the tank treads or wheels being used today. Drones need their legs, and the Big Dog shows why:
Boston Dynamics’ Big Dog robot is intended to be a pack-animal, but some can’t stop thinking about weaponizing it.
Already, Boston Dynamics is developing a two-legged robot, the PETMAN, to better navigate human environments.
Organic components. DARPA is not looking at just a mechanized future for the military. They intend to keep a human element to the machines through the use of robotic exoskeletons:
Other pieces of the puzzle. In order to make terminators possible, one major breakthrough must happen: Artificial Intelligence. Future robots will need highly-developed (almost human-like) AI to do seemingly simple things like identify targets and allies, use strategies, and know when to fall back for repairs and recharging/refueling. Also, robots will need to show “instincts” like gauging a person’s emotional state to recognize when s/he might attack. Those “instincts” may come courtesy of a brain scanner. This will allow a robot to decide if they should kill on its own, without some human operator needing to pull a trigger.
But there’s more being considered. Robots will need to recharge or refuel. That may be alleviated by the EATR project, which will allow robots to consume organic matter for energy. Also, repair and construction/replication of robots, where nanaotechnology is being considered to fill these needs.
Now consider what can happen with all the pieces in place. A robot soldier, hundreds of time stronger than a human, with an appetite for organics and programmed to kill, and able to repair itself.
Brain-Computer Interfaces are just in its infancy, but security experts are worried that hackers may be able to pull off the ultimate “mindfuck.”
Mind control. Using everyday objects requires using your brain, mostly to control your arms and legs to manipulate them. Lately though, there have been some major breakthroughs in interfacing directly to your head, including a thought-controlled wheelchair and mind-reading machines, which have stirred up some controversy of its own. William Gibson’s vision of a computer that you can “jack” into your head is ever so closer.
And that has some security people concerned…
“Neural devices are innovating at an extremely rapid rate and hold tremendous promise for the future,” said computer security expert Tadayoshi Kohno of the University of Washington. “But if we don’t start paying attention to security, we’re worried that we might find ourselves in five or 10 years saying we’ve made a big mistake.”
Hackers tap into personal computers all the time — but what would happen if they focused their nefarious energy on neural devices, such as the deep-brain stimulators currently used to treat Parkinson’s and depression, or electrode systems for controlling prosthetic limbs? According to Kohno and his colleagues, who published their concerns July 1 in Neurosurgical Focus, most current devices carry few security risks. But as neural engineering becomes more complex and more widespread, the potential for security breaches will mushroom.
Can’t happen… can it? It would seem that trying to upload malware into your cortex would be difficult at best, if you consider that most BCI are read-only (that is, they can only read your brainwaves). Then again, if the “sex chip” proves viable, that connection will become read-write which can be “influenced,” and not by outside hackers alone:
In some cases, patients might even want to hack into their own neural device. Unlike devices to control prosthetic limbs, which still use wires, many deep brain stimulators already rely on wireless signals. Hacking into these devices could enable patients to “self-prescribe” elevated moods or pain relief by increasing the activity of the brain’s reward centers.
They’re already hacking brains. If the attacks on Epilepsy support sites are any indication, brain hacking is already occurring if not directly. Having a hacker hijack your brainstem is not possible just yet, but on the day when neural interfaces and neuron reprogramming come together, you can bet that meatbots will abound and we will be facing a real zombie apocalypse…
Famed defenders of file-sharing has reportedly sold out to the tune of $8M US, and there have been some backlash among the torrent community. But TBP says it all for the better.
All hands abandon ship? Word came down the wires yesterday (June 30, 2009) that The Pirate Bay, historic torrent-tracker and copyright nightmare, has been sold to Swedish company Global Gaming Factory X (GGF). It should be noted that the sale has not yet occurred. It is only scheduled for August 2009, during which either side may change their minds.
TPB’s reason behind the sale:
We’ve been working on this project for many years. It’s time to invite more people into the project, in a way that is secure and safe for everybody. We need that, or the site will die. And letting TPB die is the last thing that is allowed to happen!
Pirate Booty. Among the major changes may be an inventive way to make file-sharing more “legitimate;” Actually pay users to share files, and even give copyright holders their fair share:
BBC - Mr Pandeya said that one of the biggest hurdles in overcoming illegal file-sharing was that there was zero cost to the users, while legitimate sites required users to pay for content. The only way to make something more attractive than free was to pay users to share files.
…
“The copyright holder still gets paid, the users still get their file, the ISP doesn’t have a million people all grabbing a file and - for the users who share that song - a payment for putting that file on the P2P network.”
TorrentFreak - The company says that after it has completed the acquisition it will launch new business models so that copyright owners get paid, which is clearly a huge diversion from TPB’s previous modus operandi.
“We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site,” said Hans Pandeya, CEO GGF.
“The Pirate Bay is a site that is among the top 100 most visited Internet sites in the world. However, in order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary,” said Pandeya.
“Content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it. File sharers’ need faster downloads and better quality,” he added.
Exactly HOW these pay-outs are going to be made… ?
Will it be worth it? There have been some people who have already abandoned ship upon hearing the news of the sale… some 4000 out of 3.7M registered users… and even some nasty comments on their blog. But TBP says it will all be worth it, since ISPs will also get paid for the bandwidth use and upgrades, and other groups can also benefit:
The profits from the sale will go into a foundation that is going to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openess of the nets. I hope everybody will help out in that and realize that this is the best option for all. Don’t worry - be happy!
That’s probably what they said about the “new” Napster.
We won’t know until August if the sale is worth it. That’s IF nobody has second thoughts before then.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, is now concerned that the net has become more powerful than even he believed possible. Now, he wants to put it under a microscope so he/we can understand why.
The Web is God? When Tim Berners-Lee first created what would be the foundations for the Web (not the Net, WEB. Let’s get our usage right.), he could not have predicted the explosive growth seen in the 1990s through today. In fact, the Web is now so ingrained into our cultures that humanity is practically fused to it. This fusion is causing its own problems.
That is giving Berners-Lee some cause for alarm. To study the effects that the Web is now having on humanity, he has founded the Web Science Research Initiative and came up with the term Web Science to describe what the WSRI is studying:
When we discuss an agenda for a science of the Web, we use the term “science” in two ways. Physical and biological science analyzes the natural world, and tries to find microscopic laws that, extrapolated to the macroscopic realm, would generate the behavior observed. Computer science, by contrast, though partly analytic, is principally synthetic: It is concerned with the construction of new languages and algorithms in order to produce novel desired computer behaviors. Web science is a combination of these two features. The Web is an engineered space created through formally specified languages and protocols. However, because humans are the creators of Web pages and links between them, their interactions form emergent patterns in the Web at a macroscopic scale. These human interactions are, in turn, governed by social conventions and laws. Web science, therefore, must be inherently interdisciplinary; its goal is to both understand the growth of the Web and to create approaches that allow new powerful and more beneficial patterns to occur.
As you can see by this ’simple’ map, the Web affects many aspects of society, so there are many aspects to Web Science to consider. It’s even possible that the Singularity may be lurking in here, with SHODAN and Skynet.
Weird Science, or necessary discipline?
(From NewScientist) How does understanding these emergent systems affect society?
Because if you get it right, you can create a new social phenomenon that changes how people operate. Take designing an online market for second-hand goods: if you get the website’s balance of social and technical wrong, or mess up its trust and reputation model, it won’t work. But if you get it right, you create a market for used goods internationally that can affect the price of products around the world because it provides the price of the second-hand alternative. It is a web phenomenon that changed the way society works, and we need a science to understand it.
Web Science sounds like something that people who work with the Web need to know, not just for designing sites, but for security and privacy as well. But is it something worth getting a PhD for? The biggest test will be when… or if… they are able to but the science into actual use for everyday people. Remember: In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.
Friend invitation extended to John Connor. Depending on how you feel about robots, this is either a major step forward or a sign of the apocalypse. A month-long experiment is going to be run on Facebook where a robot, complete with a profile, will be used to see if humans are willing to make friends with the machine. The experiment is being run by Nikolaos Mavridis and the United Arab Emirates University’s Interactive Robots and Media Laboratory (IRML), which explains the bot’s name and appearance. Details can be found on the IRML website and a paper is available (PDF) from arXiv.org.
Technical difficulties. Of course, to make friends with Ibn, you need to be registered with Facebook, then find the right Ibn Sina to befriend. I’ve made an attempt to register to see if this is for real, but something is fubar with their registration system. Maybe others are trying to make friends with the robot as well. I’ll keep trying and let you know if it ends well, or if we give birth to Skynet.
Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde, Pirate Bay admins, were found guilty of contributing to copyright violations. Their funder, Carl Lundström, was also convicted. Click the pic for the story from Wired
The judgment hammer comes down. For the admins of The Pirate Bay, the hammer came down hard. Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundström have been found guilty of “contributory copyright infringement” and sentenced to a year in jail each and fined 30 million kronor, or $3.6 million US. The content syndicates were applauding the decision with their one free hand:
“Today’s ruling sends an important signal that online criminals who show such blatant disregard for the rights of others will be fully prosecuted under the law,” said Mark Esper, a vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
“We welcome the court’s decision today because The Pirate Bay is a source of immense damage to the creative industries in Sweden and internationally,” said Dan Glickman, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America. “This is an important decision for rights-holders, underlining their right to have their creative works protected against illegal exploitation and to be fairly rewarded for their endeavors. This decision will help to support the continued investment in talent and in new online services, and the creation of new films and television shows for enjoyment by audiences around the world.”
Knocked down, but not kicked offline. While Hollywood may have hoped that the verdict will mean the plug would be pulled on TPB’s servers, the Bay crew have expressed their continued defiance in their blog:
So, the dice courts judgement is here. It was lol to read and hear, crazy verdict.
But as in all good movies, the heroes lose in the beginning but have an epic victory in the end anyhow. That’s the only thing hollywood ever taught us.
Even on their press conference video, their defiance of the verdict is made clear:
(From BBC News) “It’s serious to actually be found guilty and get jail time. It’s really serious. And that’s a bit weird,” Sunde said.
“It’s so bizarre that we were convicted at all and it’s even more bizarre that we were [convicted] as a team. The court said we were organised. I can’t get Gottfrid out of bed in the morning. If you’re going to convict us, convict us of disorganised crime.
“We can’t pay and we wouldn’t pay. Even if I had the money I would rather burn everything I owned, and I wouldn’t even give them the ashes.”
A Pyrrhic victory. If the content syndicates believe this verdict will end file sharing they need to drink more coffee. Their win is already having the opposite effect, as TorrentFreak is reporting an increase in membership of Sweden’s Pirate Party, who view the trial as a political battle:
(BBC News) - Rickard Falkvinge, leader of The Pirate Party - which is trying to reform laws around copyright and patents in the digital age - told the BBC that the verdict was “a gross injustice”.
“This wasn’t a criminal trial, it was a political trial. It is just gross beyond description that you can jail four people for providing infrastructure.
“There is a lot of anger in Sweden right now. File-sharing is an institution here and while I can’t encourage people to break copyright law, I’m not following it and I don’t agree with it.
“Today’s events make file-sharing a hot political issue and we’re going to take this to the European Parliament.”
I actually think this a win-win situation for The Pirate Bay. If they’re convicted, they’ll be martyrs and the “piracy” movement will continue working for what they believe in, even more strongly. If they win, the signal to the public is that file sharing isn’t illegal and The Pirate Bay will basically have achieved its goal.
The recording companies and networks’ arguments for copyright do not ring true. Their fight is NOT about protecting the quality and integrity of the original works nor is it to ensure the ORIGINAL CREATOR is properly compensated because neither is the case.
It IS about control of virtually every single bit of information and entertainment. Their current argument could easily be made for news and information shows, educational shows and documentaries.
BREAKING UPDATE (23-Apr-09): We know that the verdict wasn’t the final word in the Pirate Bay case, but now there’s word all over the net that the trial itself may be invalid all along. The problem? The judge who rendered the verdict and sentences:
Wired - One of the four men convicted in The Pirate Bay trial is seeking to have his guilty verdict thrown out after learning that the judge in the trial is a member of two pro-copyright groups, including one whose membership includes entertainment industry representatives who argued in the case.
Stockholm district court judge, Tomas Norström told a Swedish newspaper that his previously-undisclosed entanglements with the copyright groups did not constitute a conflict of interest.
O RLY?
TorrentFreak - Today, an event on Swedish national radio SR threw everything into doubt - and it’s barely believable, like something straight out of Hollywood.
The copyright industry likes to have the outcome of processes clear before engaging them so it’s perhaps unsurprising that SR today revealed that the judge Tomas Norström is in league with it on many fronts. The judge has several engagements - together with the prosecution lawyers for the movie and music industries.
Swedish Association of Copyright (SFU) - The judge Tomas Norström is a member of this discussion forum that holds seminars, debates and releases the Nordic Intellectual Property Law Review. Other members of this outfit? Henrik Pontén (Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau), Monique Wadsted (movie industry lawyer) and Peter Danowsky (IFPI) - the latter is also a member of the board of the association.
Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property (SFIR) - The judge Tomas Norström sits on the board of this association that works for stronger copyright laws. Last year they held the Nordic Championships in Intellectual Property Rights Process Strategies.
.SE (The Internet Infrastructure Foundation) - Tomas Norström works for the foundation that oversees the .se name domain and advises on domain name disputes. His colleague at the foundation? Monique Wadsted. Wadsted says she’s never met Norström although they have worked together.
A Wall Street Journal report claims that spies have planted malware in America’s power grid systems with the possible intent of mass disruption of key infrastructures like electricity and communications. The timing couldn’t be better with a recent introduction of a bill that would allow President Barack Obama the “authority” to kill the Internet.
An electrical botnet?
(Wall Street Journal) - Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.
The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven’t sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.
That’s the claim made in today’s (08-Apr-09) Wall Street Journal, but events going at least one month back is casting some serious doubts on those claims, IMO anyway. While it’s possible for foreign malware to be present in key systems, it seems more like the real threat is domestic.
Here’s the timeline so far. Take it with a grain of salt if you must, and accept the hypertension:
Department of Homeland Security Cyber Chief quits due to NSA hostile takeover (09-Mar-09)
Wired - Rod Beckstrom was head of National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), but quit over what he felt was pressure from the NSA to take over US cybersecurity. More information can be found here and here.
Beckstrom also expressed a concern over the NSA’s attempt to consolidate its power:
In his resignation letter, Beckstrom said the NSA is trying to move the NCSC to its base at Ft. Meade in Maryland, a move he opposes on grounds that it would concentrate too much authority in one place.
“The issue is that we have a federated government, decentralized for a reason,” Beckstrom told Forbes. “Our founding fathers never believed that power should be concentrated in one place. And what today is more powerful than information?”
Fat Cat Rockefeller says “The Internet Should Never Have Existed” (20-Mar-09)
YouTube via Prison Planet via C-Span 2.
WARNING: The contents of this video may make you want to vomit, laugh until you shit bricks, or shoot Rockefeller. Cyberpunk Review will not be held responsible for your physical and mental state of mind if you watch. Viewer discretion is advised:
Actually, Rockefeller doesn’t say the net should have never existed; Another congress-critter makes that implication.
“Cybersecurity Bill” would allow President Obama to shut down the Internet (02-Apr-09)
NetworkWorld - On April 1, a proposal legislation was introduced to the Senate that would allow Obama wide powers to shut down the Internet, or at least take control over it during times of “cybersecurity emergency.” Here’s the direct link to the PDF of the proposed legislation if you want to read it. The bill was introduced by none other than Senator John Rockefeller (see video above).
Salute the False Flag. A year ago, the CIA claimed hackers hacked foreign utilities. Those “claims” have yet to be backed up by actual press reports. But that claim was probably forged to get additional powers to spy.
Wired’s Kevin Poulsen puts the screws to the Wall Street Journal and the NSA in this brief op-ed piece.
Sadly, this new installment doesn’t contain the kind of juicy details that made the previous one so easy to debunk. In fact, it contains almost no details at all. The attacks are “pervasive,” and yet not a single utility company is named as a victim. Even better, the blackout-triggering malware hasn’t been spotted by the companies — which explains perfectly why this is the first we’ve heard of it. Only America’s intelligence community has seen the code. They could show us, but then they’d have to kill us.
…
It’s an unusually opportune time for this revelation, since the NSA is at this very moment jockeying to take over cyber security from DHS, which lacks the wholesale warrantless-wiretapping capabilities needed to detect Chinese hackers. What a lucky coincidence of timing that this exciting, if uncheckable, story should emerge now.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
UPDATE: Fiber Cables Cut in Silicon Valley, Reward Being Offered. (10-Apr-09)
There’s already speculation that the work was done by the Communications Workers of America, a union that’s negotiating a new contract with AT&T:
Special News Bureau - AT&T is in the middle of acrimonious negotiations with the Communications Workers of America, whose members have been working without a contract since just before midnight Saturday and are on standby mode for a potential strike.
A new website, 409truth.com is already calling the sabotage a false-flag attack; AT&T cut the cables to frame the union. They may have the right idea, but name the wrong targets.
Two stories this week show how the merging of science and technology is making the singularity closer to reality as two automated research projects in experimentation comes up with the identical discovery; Humans are obsolete.
Just kidding! Here’s what they DID discover:
Physics discovered by computer program.
(Wired) Cornell University researchers have created a program that can find relationships in large amounts of data. It sounds like simple data processing, but it is not:
The Cornell program came up with an formula describing the physics of a two-part pendulum. It did in a day what some of the most brilliant physicist minds took centuries to do. AND without any knowledge of physics or geometry!
This is only an example of what the researchers are hoping to do with such programs: To help human scientists analyze infinitely large data sets.
“One of the biggest problems in science today is moving forward and finding the underlying principles in areas where there is lots and lots of data, but there’s a theoretical gap. We don’t know how things work,” said Hod Lipson, the Cornell University computational researcher who co-wrote the program. “I think this is going to be an important tool.”
Condensing rules from raw data has long been considered the province of human intuition, not machine intelligence. It could foreshadow an age in which scientists and programs work as equals to decipher datasets too complex for human analysis.
Then again, if what’s going on in the UK is any indication, the human factor may be taken out of science all together.
Dr. Adam-Bot makes discoveries with yeast
“Normal robots just do what you tell them, but ADAM is different, because it can hypothesize and try to solve a problem itself.” - Ross King, of Aberystwyth University in Wales, U.K.
(Nat-Geo)(Science Daily) (and practically everywhere by now) What has to be the first ever “robot scientist,” Adam, has discovered new knowledge about baker’s yeast. Not exactly earth-shaking discoveries, but the fact that the totally automated Adam made these discoveries by itself is big news.
(From Nat-Geo) First ADAM was given a crash course in biology, including everything that is already known about baker’s yeast.
ADAM quickly set to work, formulating and testing 20 different hypotheses. The robot eventually identified the genes that code for enzymes involved in yeast metabolism—a scientific first for a robot.
Using independent experiments, King and his colleagues were able to verify ADAM’s results.
King’s reason for creating Adam is to help scientists in their research:
(From Science Daily) “Because biological organisms are so complex it is important that the details of biological experiments are recorded in great detail. This is difficult and irksome for human scientists, but easy for Robot Scientists.”
King already has plans for another robot scientist, Eve, that will be devoted to researching drugs for tropical diseases. As for possibly replacing human scientists outright, “While robots are better at coordinating thousands of experiments, humans are better are seeing the big picture and planning the overall experiment.”
It looks like the NSA(T&T) has some competition in the domestic spying game… and they may be targets themselves.
The Biggest Brother. While the UK is well on its way to being a security-surveillance police-state, and America’s plans are apparently “on hold” for now, it would seem hard to imagine another nation attempting to lay claim to the “Big Brother” title. But China has been doing just that, according to a recently released report from researchers at the University of Toronto. A ten-month investigation has turned up some 1300 infected systems worldwide, including high-value government computers like those of the exiled Tibetan government and the Dali Lama. A full report can be downloaded from here.
Vulnerability detected between keyboard and chair. The way the infection was spread sounds typical: e-mails were sent with a trojan attached, the user unwittingly opens the attachment and infects his system, and the infected system uploads sensitive files to China and spreads even more e-mails where the user unwittingly opens the attachment…
What happens after the initial infection:
“The GhostNet system directs infected computers to download a Trojan (horse) known as ghOst RAT that allows attackers to gain complete, real-time control,” the authors write in Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network.
“Our investigation reveals that GhostNet is capable of taking full control of infected computers, including searching and downloading specific files, and covertly operating attached devices, including microphones and web cameras.”
The Dalai Lama expresses how he feels about China’s regime
Other Ghosts on The Net? While the Ghostnet is concentrated more on Asia, there’s a possibility that American systems have also been infected, though no reports about such infections have surfaced… yet.
Americans being spied on by foreign nations may not be new, but The Student Operated Press raises concerns about the US cybersecurity scheme, and even worse, that a post-9/11 paranoia-infected Department of Homeland (in)Security has its own Ghostnet:
Robert Paul Reyes (S.O.P.):
I hope that the CIA is taking serious precautions to safeguard our military and intelligence computer systems. I`m confident that they are running their own GhostNet operations to keep track of our many enemies throughout the world.
But what I fear the most is that the Department of Homeland Security has a GhostNet operation to keep track of Americans. Under the guise of fighting terrorism the Bush administration wiretapped the phones of Americans without obtaining a warrant from the courts.
What Ghostnet is about may be scary, but it’s small fries compared the what Conficker may have to offer…
You may want to get Right Said Fred, a mag-pulse rifle, and/or your best robo-babe pickup lines ready.
The latest sex-bot struts her stuff. Only Japan can come up with a bot beauty ready to walk the catwalk. While America wastes robot-tech on wars for world domination, Japan puts the tech to better use with helpful robots. Judging by the latest, the HRP-4C fashion robot, they’re doing it right.
From Straits Times:
The girlie-faced humanoid with slightly oversized eyes, a tiny nose and a shoulder length hair-do boasts 42 motion motors programmed to mimic the movements of flesh-and-blood fashion models.
‘Hello everybody, I am cybernetic human HRP-4C,’ said the futuristic fashionista, opening her media premiere at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology outside Tokyo.
The fashion-bot is 158 centimetres tall, the average height of Japanese women aged 19 to 29, but weighs in at a waif-like 43 kilograms - including batteries. She has a manga-inspired human face but a silver metallic body.
Her official fashion show debut will be on March 23 in Tokyo. Afterward, she’s expected to go on the market for $200K US each, primarily for the entertainment industries.
A case of first-time jitters? HRP’s debut wasn’t the smoothest, as she kept looking surprised and stunned as the cameras clicked away, confusing her sound sensors. On the plus side, she wasn’t an ED-209. This problem should be fixed by her debut.
