Felling sad? Allergy problems? Japanese Robots Can Help
If you have ever used public transportation in Japan then you have been offered some tissue pack with an advertisement on it. I guess it is more useful than just an ad leaflet and during alergy season i would actually seek out these tissue packs for my runny nose.
Now Japan has created a robot to replace the hard working, and often ignored, employees.
Mospeng-kun is a tissue-dispensing robot created by InterRobot Inc., a robot development and rental company based in western Japan.
When the friendly Mospeng-kun detects a person nearby, it utters a high-pitched onegai shimasu and offers up a pack of tissues. When the tissues are taken from the robot’s hand, it thanks the customer with an arigato gozaimashita and grabs another tissue pack from the cartridge for the next person.
InterRobot’s rental fees start at 100,000 yen ($835) for 5 days, which is quite a bit more than the going rate for a human tissue distributor. But Mospeng-kun looks to be cheerful, constantly maintaining a smile on its face monitor. In addition, according to the company website, Mospeng-kun is capable of gathering information about the people it encounters on the job.
By Sun Tzu on 08-04-2007
