[HN Gopher] Japan introduces enormous humanoid robot to maintain...
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       Japan introduces enormous humanoid robot to maintain train lines
        
       Author : thunderbong
       Score  : 85 points
       Date   : 2024-07-04 20:02 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
        
       | l1n wrote:
       | https://www.jinki.jp/ their website is banger
        
       | pineaux wrote:
       | This is the most Japan thing I have seen here in a long time.
       | Immediate throwback to all the cool mecha anime stuff...
        
       | ano-ther wrote:
       | Here is a video of it in action:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owSJK7vMSLk
       | 
       | Interestingly, humans come very close to it during operation.
        
         | dugditches wrote:
         | Not much different than everyday on sites everywhere with boom
         | cranes. Which are arguably much more dangerous due to being
         | less dexterous and no video. Notably 1:23 where it's similar to
         | working with a crane.
        
         | roughly wrote:
         | That looks incredibly cool, and also instantly nausea inducing
         | - I can't imagine the video feed and the head gyros are fast
         | enough to avoid that little bit of lag and judder that turn VR
         | into a vomit machine.
         | 
         | The feedback on the arm is very cool, though.
        
           | gpm wrote:
           | FPV drone hardware has commercialized very cheap very low
           | latency video feeds to headsets.
           | 
           | Not with headtracking though. Not sure that's reasonably
           | possible.
        
       | 6510 wrote:
       | This has a video
       | 
       | https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240702_14/
        
       | bitwize wrote:
       | Hell yes. The age of Japanese mechs foretold by anime is upon us.
        
         | Izikiel43 wrote:
         | Is this how gundam started?
        
           | shawn_w wrote:
           | This is more Patlabor than Gundam.
        
       | crooked-v wrote:
       | This seems like a decent force multiplier, though I have to
       | wonder how efficient the results are compared to just having a
       | small crew of workers with a boom lift and a good toolbox. There
       | are also the attention-splitting issues you can't cover with just
       | one person in a cab, like marking off areas and directing
       | traffic/pedestrians.
        
         | jalk wrote:
         | I guess they will have to put old people at the controls, to
         | overcome "the worker shortage in aging Japan"
        
         | Tade0 wrote:
         | Their problem appears to be that they don't have that small
         | crew to work with. Median age in Japan is already 48+ and
         | creeping up.
        
       | lemoncookiechip wrote:
       | This is so cool, leave it to Japan.
        
       | andrewstuart wrote:
       | Yes. Japan delivering the future we were promised.
        
       | maxglute wrote:
       | It's still user controlled like a surgical robot but for
       | construction. I'm guessing it's eventually going to be run
       | remotely by a bunch of japanese operators too old to work in the
       | field. Also disappointingly small for "enormous", was hoping for
       | a gundam.
        
         | core_dumped wrote:
         | Eh, the classic Gundam is around 18 m tall. This comes close at
         | 12 m. The upper body and arms certainly invoke mobile suit
         | aesthetics though
        
           | maxglute wrote:
           | It reaches 12m on a telescoped crane, the actual scale of the
           | robot body looks pretty small, smaller than the cab of the
           | truck. Pretty human scale all things considered, makes one
           | wonder if it's goign to be mounted on treads or legs one day
           | for indoor use. It does look very cool indeed.
        
         | anigbrowl wrote:
         | Gotta start somewhere, once the initial bugs are sorted out we
         | can start forcing ambivalent high schoolers into existential
         | crisis situations.
        
       | Hobadee wrote:
       | I've seen this movie before. It ends badly for the humans.
        
         | hobscoop wrote:
         | Strong echoes of the Onion's reporting on Dr. Lester Mordock's
         | giant crabs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Uq9pp586AE
        
       | fabiospampinato wrote:
       | Enormous humanoid robots for everything! Have you ever watched
       | one of those videos where somebody makes a mini concrete building
       | in a few days? I'd be cool to just scale that up, if it's
       | possible, perhaps with faster-setting concrete or something.
        
       | atum47 wrote:
       | So... how long until Daileon?
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | If you don't know what type of robot to build then build a
       | humanoid robot because it can do almost anything and you can
       | leave it to the software folks to implement its behavior. Nobody
       | ever got fired for building a humanoid robot.
        
       | rkagerer wrote:
       | They weren't kidding about it looking like an awesome 80's robot!
       | Resembles Johnny 5 (from 1988):
       | https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/robotics/images/4/49/Johnn...
        
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       (page generated 2024-07-04 23:00 UTC)