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Build Your Own Walking, Talking, Singing Astro Boy Robot (for US$1,600)

posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Robot can communicate, use onboard camera to remember faces

Tezuka Productions, NTT Docomo, Fujisoft, VAIO, and Kodansha announced its new "Atom Project," named after the protagonist of Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atom) manga. The highlight of the project is "Japan's first real character-based communication robot" that can speak and move.

Kodansha is streaming a series of videos that demonstrate the toy's functions, which include introducing itself, singing "Happy Birthday" (complete with the person's name), self-diagnostics, and use of an on-board camera to remember the faces of up to 12 family members to greet them.

Like similar weekly hobby building projects, the parts of the robot will ship with issues of a new magazine titled Shūkan Tetsuwan Atom o Tsukurō (Weekly Let's Build Astro Boy). The first 830-yen (US$7.30) issue will launch on April 4, and the most of the remaining 69 weekly issues will cost 1,843 yen (US$16.28). However, some of the issues will cost more — from 2,306 yen (US$20.36) to 9,250 (US$81.66) yen — so the final grand total will be 184,474 yen (US$1,628 before taxes).

The project promises that the entire kit can be assembled with just one screwdriver. For people who don't want to build it, VAIO is offering 1,000 pre-built sets for 212,900 yen (US$1,879).

A television anime adaptation of Tetsuro Kasahara's Atom The Beginning manga is also slated to premiere this spring on NHK. The series is being produced in cooperation with Tezuka Productions. Osamu Tezuka's son, Makoto Tezuka, is in charge of project planning cooperation and supervision for the anime.

Source: PC Watch


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