RobotsLife.com - Tadahiro Kawada
[old but interesting interview] Tadahiro KAWADA, Director, Kawada Industries - Aircraft and Mechanical Systems Division
Kawada Industries is the company that built the HRP-2P (HRP-2-prototype, showed left and below).
This robot, presented for the first time at the end of March 2002, is an anthropomorphic, biped machine. It has been developed for the Humanoid Robotics Project (HRP), sponsored by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), part of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry.
Kawada Industries was in charge of the hardware design and fabrication, while two other companies, Yaskawa Electric Corp. and Shimizu Corp., were responsible of the other aspects of the project.
HRP-2P is taller (1,54 m) but lighter (58 kg) than Honda's Asimo. It has 30 degrees of freedom and will be used for experiments later this year including "walking on uneven terrains, falling or tipping-over, or getting-up from fallen positions".
Tadahiro Kawada is Director at Kawada Industries' Aircraft and Mechanical Systems Division, which was in charge of HRP-2P.
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Silicon.com - Robots - the more human the better, study finds

Winston Chai writes for CNET News.com
Mon 2 June 2003 10:06AM BST

"Sometimes people are afraid of robots," says researcher. Funny that.
Imitation is not just the best form of flattery - it's also good interface design. A study shows that talking computers that copy a user's unique vocal inflections seem easier to use.
The researchers think that a key component of machine likeability is the ability to mirror the 'music' - the rhythm and pitch - of a user's speech.
This finding stemmed from an experiment conducted by Japanese researcher Noriko Suzuki's team at ATR Media Information Science Laboratories in Kyoto, reported scientific journal New Scientist.
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Robots may yet morph from science fiction to fact

June 3, 2003
BY MARK BROWN SUN-TIMES

Robots were supposed to make my life easier. George Jetson promised me as much, in so many words, when Astro wasn't busting me up with a well-timed: "Ruh-roh."
Even for those who didn't take their cues from cartoons, there were plenty of serious folks to make us believe that our futures would be simplified by now with household robots that could help with the chores.
So what happened?
That's the question that made me jump at the opportunity Monday to get a preview of the International Robots & Vision Show, which opens today at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont.
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