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" There&amp;#039;s a reason that Asimo is the most famous robot in the world. And just like his contemporaries in the tabloids (here&amp;#039;s looking at you, Lauren Conrad and Heidi Montag), it has little to do with talent. Honda&amp;#039;s 4-ft. 3-in.-tall humanoid robot has rung the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, met no less than four world leaders and, just last week--to just as much fanfare but just as little practical utility--conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.  Being famous, it seems, is precisely what Asimo was built to do. Valued at somewhere under $1 million apiece, more than 40 Asimo models currently roam the theme-park stages, talk-show sets and corporate offices of the world. Asimo can run at up to 4 mph, recognize faces and voices with stereoscopic cameras and a trio of head-mounted microphones, and avoid crashing into its environment with an array of ultrasonic sensors. It can greet you, serve you a beverage from a tray, and escort you to the appropriate meeting room (provided you&amp;#039;re wearing the appropriate smart card).  To be sure, Asimo is an incredibly sophisticated device, technologically speaking. And as a marketing tool, it&amp;#039;s a sensation, guaranteeing a burst of news coverage with each publicity stunt. But other than stepping carefully into the spotlight every few months, what the hell does Asimo actually do? When the robot was fully unveiled in 2002, Honda hoped to eventually sell similar units as domestic servants. A robot that can walk up and down stairs, grasp objects and interact with humans seems like a perfect fit for elderly care. Six years later, Asimo still costs more than $100,000 to rent, has yet to make anyone&amp;#039;s bed and represents just the latest in a series of disappointments for the future of household bots. So forget what Asimo can and cannot do: When will this robot get a job? It&amp;#039;s not that robots are ill-suited for real work, even today. While Asimo has been busy waving to children and appearing in car commercials, iRobot&amp;#039;s Roomba has been invading homes by the millions, dutifully--and somewhat autonomously--cleaning up after its human masters. And lesser-known robots have proved their utility in life-and-death situations, helping to locate survivors buried under rubble, and more recently assisting with brain surgery.  The trouble with Asimo, or at least the reason it seems trapped in a neverending press tour, is its legs. For years, iRobot CEO Colin Angle has criticized humanoid robots, claiming during an address at the 2006 RoboBusiness conference that interest in walking robots had stunted the growth of a consumer robotics industry. Angle reiterated the relative uselessness of two-legged models during a roundtable discussion at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. And in the middle of his keynote presentation at RoboBusiness last month, Angle put it more bluntly: &amp;quot;Walking robots are silly.&amp;quot;  iRobot has already demonstrated stair-climbing with its tracked tactical robots, such as the Packbot and the Warrior. Israeli robotics company Gallileo Mobility has developed a bot (which is being developed by the Israeli Army for use in urban operations) whose rubber-treaded wheels can change shape to better conform to stairs and other obstacles. In other words, if the most noble and profitable goal of domestic robotics is to help the elderly and disabled--Angle is among those that believe this might be the true &amp;quot;killer app&amp;quot; for consumer bots--then all of the work that&amp;#039;s gone into maintaining Asimo&amp;#039;s balance while walking, running and (naturally) dancing may end up essentially pointless. Despite those miscalculations with Asimo, Toyota is banking on its own research into the future of two-legged robotic maids and nurses. The U.S.-assigned model in its group of so-called &amp;quot;partner robots&amp;quot; plays the trumpet while walking (a quartet of musical bots have shared the stage in Japan). Each partner bot has its own research focus and corresponding demonstration potential, be it wheeled mobility or, in the case of Toyota&amp;#039;s tour-guide model, the kind of collision detection and verbal communication that Asimo has already demonstrated. But to help build public awareness, the trumpeter needs to put on a show, which is why it&amp;#039;s equipped with an internal air compressor and a mouth that replicates human vibrations. &amp;quot;We don&amp;#039;t see a market for instrument-playing robots,&amp;quot; says Goss, external affairs manager at Toyota&amp;#039;s manufacturing office. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a way to demonstrate the research we&amp;#039;re doing into different kinds of movements and actions.&amp;quot;  Toyota plans to sell a wider range of caretaker robots in the next decade, hoping to cover the field of mobility with new models that can walk or roll. As the era of robotic elder care marches closer--slowly, but inexorably--it&amp;#039;s hard to imagine humanoid models like Asimo ever becoming cheap enough for widespread adoption. Indeed, the mascot will likely never become the maid. Fortunately for Asimo--and maybe less fortunately for the rest of us--there&amp;#039;s always a place in the world for shameless self-promotion, be it human, robotic or some useless approximation of both. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a3317/4264593/>