Neuroprancer (Sitegeist)
It's
a party organiser's dream; hospitality staff that are always smiling
and have an iron constitution to boot. Well, an aluminium one anyway,
thanks to the debut event appearance of cybernetic human HRP-4C at
Tokyo Fashion Week which opened yesterday. Kenza Darley (24 Mar'09)
Her
runway sashay wasn't as polished as her silver exterior so there was no
danger of upstaging the human fashion models in Tokyo. However, HRP-4C
did give a glimpse into the possibilities of merger between man and
machine.
Certainly, she has an image that could work at cocktail and afterparties given the current popularity of the Japanese anime-style look. A skin-like texture conceals some 40 motors within her humanoid frame which allow her to walk, talk, smile and, yes, wink.
The five foot two inch fashionista with Ghd-straight hair was designed by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial
Science and Technology, near Tokyo, at a cost of more than 200 million yen or just over one million pounds.
This alone shows the drive to bring to life the fictions of writers such as William Gibson , JG Ballard and Asimov. While the vision is strong, the shortcomings are also recognised. “If we had made the robot too similar to a real human, it would have been uncanny. We have deliberately leaned toward an anime style,” said Shuji Kajita, the humanoid research leader at the Institute and one of the inventors of HRP-4C.
The
somewhat jerky performance of HRP-4C in Tokyo and the acknowledgment of
her inventor, Kajita, indicate that we're still a couple of decades
away from making cybernetics realistic.
Until then, RedKarpet is
more than happy to accept cocktails from live hospitality staff and
take in the catwalk grace of real models. We also figure that the time
lapse will allow ample opportunity to give HRP-4C a suitably girly
name. Any suggestions??
At Tokyo Fashion Week (AP)