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" Popular Mechanics: Why did Honda decide to do a short about robots? Barbara Ponce: We launched our &amp;quot;Dream the Impossible&amp;quot; documentary series last January. [Living With Robots] is our sixth film. Our documentary series is, we feel, an excellent opportunity for us to communicate the spirit of the power of dreams and to define this through stories within Honda. You can&amp;#039;t do that in a 30-second commercial. The reality is, there&amp;#039;s been so much interest in Asimo and our work in robotics that it was one film that we wanted to do right from the beginning. So we arranged to get interviews\u2014we flew him to New York\u2014with our chief engineer, who works out of Japan exclusively. It was tremendously insightful to hear the stories about all of the challenges he had to overcome to create Asimo and the 23 years of dedication to this technology. We really wanted to share that with the public. PM: What do you hope the film and these public demonstrations will do for Asimo and for Honda as well? BP: We&amp;#039;re so fortunate to be a partner with the Sundance Film Festival and the institute because it is all about bold new ideas and bringing to light innovation and looking at things people haven&amp;#039;t looked at before. So our film, Living With Robots, is about ideas where technology can improve our lives. At Honda, the ability to improve lives isn&amp;#039;t just limited to cars and motorcycles. There&amp;#039;s huge potential in robotics. The premise of the film is really looking at the what, the where and the ways this technology can improve our lives, and what are the fears that we can overcome to get to that place. So the spirit of the film is focused on that and then also showcasing Honda&amp;#039;s technology in this area, but also to be true to what&amp;#039;s going on in robotics. We&amp;#039;re not the only ones working on this. We wanted to show what&amp;#039;s happening in the field of medicine, what&amp;#039;s happening in film.  PM: In the course of making this film, did you find that people come to robotics with preconceived notions and fears? BP: I&amp;#039;ve been working at Honda for 11 years, so I&amp;#039;m pretty knowledgeable about our robotics research. I think the thing that was surprising to me was the uncanny valley\u2014the fact that robots that are too human-like led to discomfort. As we were talking with everyone, this uncanny valley was coming up in every interview and sure enough, as we talked to our engineers they talked about designing Asimo&amp;#039;s face and how they didn&amp;#039;t want it to be too human-like. Even the size of Asimo is designed to be friendly and to reach doors and all of that, so that was a new perspective for me . PM: Is Asimo going to come with any accessories?  BP: Probably one of the most popular questions we get is, &amp;quot;Can Asimo grab me beer at the end of the day?&amp;quot; And that comes from men who come home at the end of the day to watch sports. Really, Asimo is designed to help people in the home, so that will be people who are invalid or incapable of getting up and down. The fascinating thing is while the robotics research is exploratory, we are taking those applications and, as you heard in the film, applying the technology to antilock brakes, but also we have a walking-assist device, which provides support and that comes from walking technology and we&amp;#039;ve heard a lot from doctors\u2014and even from people in the entertainment world, cameramen, directors of photography, that those kinds of devices could really help them move around when they need back support.      "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a5010/4343821/>