All across Japan, men in white coats are tinkering away, preparing to unleash a robo-revolution which will change our lives forever. Mechanical canine companionship today, before you know it you'll have R2D2 in your living room conjuring up images of a skimpily clad Princess Leia on demand. Tony I.R. Daniels explores the progress of Japan's new barmy robot army. And you thought Tamagochis were clever.

Finally: an end to the "who walks the dog?" question

FISHY FANTASIES

Remember the scene in Goldfinger when Q explains to 007 that he has fitted an ejector seat into Bond's new model Aston Martin? "You're joking!" retorts Sean Connery, his face such a convincing mask of disbelief that the audience easily infers the unmuttered, "What the hell do I need that for?"

So when NHK recently announced that the Ministry of Food, Forestry and Fisheries has decided to develop a "fish robot," ostensibly to "conduct research into developing new ships' propellers," the more cynical of you might have indignantly choked on your sushi. What, after all, could the Woods, Water and Wa-shoku commissars' absurd pseudo piscine propulsion proposal be, other than just another attempt to piranha one more stump of our taxpayers' money out of the Ministry of Finance?

As screwy as it seems, MFF's fishy fantasies represent only the latest development in what may turn out to be Japan's most important technological obsession; its new Holy Grail, the walking, talking, living, squawking, intelligent robot. In fact, up and down the country, an itty-bitty, dinky-techie revolution is taking place. A peek inside university research labs reveals a bewildering array of, well, really weird robotics projects. Up in the University of Hokkaido, for example, scientists have now developed a banana-hunting monkey robot. At Tsukuba University, in the heart of Japan's main science city, lurks its pheromone-sensing insect cousin.

Banana-hunting, sex-scenting robots. Mmm. They seem unconnected, until you realize that they are both funded, along with a litter of other crazy concoctions in some fifty other laboratories from twenty-five universities, in a huge Ministry of Education promoted three-year Intelligent Robotics program.

Actually the quest to build intelligent robots that can communicate, think and help humans is a big and, by technological time scales, ancient national goal. Right back in 1982 the indefatigable Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) kicked off an eight-year, JY180 billion National Project for Advanced Robotics initiative, involving seventeen companies spearheaded by MITI's elite Electrotechnical Laboratories. The academic payoff has been the development of a huge academic infrastructure with over twenty government, university and corporate laboratories conducting world-leading research.

One reason for Japan's excellence, says Ozawa Noriaki, Deputy Director of MITI's Industrial Machinery Division is "the Japanese peoples' love of precision and miniaturization." Another is what you could call nerdy "droid rage." Arguably, Japan leads the world with a thriving university robotics culture, perhaps best summed up by Osaka University's entrance to the Robcup World Cup 1997 in Nagoya. The event is one of dozens that litter the university calendar here. A bit like the real equivalent's performance in last year's World Cup, the Osaka team didn't win much. But perhaps shadowing the real chances of J. Leaguers, one student said his ambition was to develop robots capable of beating the human Brazilian national team in forty years time.

Ambitious? Absurd? If both Japan's student layabouts and its ministerial masters are serious, so are politicians and, perhaps more importantly, industry. Last year, in the recesses of the LDP's HQ in Nagatacho, LDP scientist-politician Ono Shinya launched his Robolympics campaign to actually get Japan to hold the world's first Olympics for Robots. Will Japanese cyberletes be able to avenge the shock of the 1964 games when Judoka failed to get a clean sweep of golds? The Science and Technology Agency no less is backing the plan alongside a revolving team of industrialists from Japan's top electronics and software firms and university labs.


CUTE AND CURIOUS

Papa? The AIBO prototype

Back in one such laboratory, at the University of Electro Communications in Chofu, nests perhaps Japan's most celebrated robot scientist, Professor Yamafuji Kazuo. No, you won't have heard of him. But the redoubtable professor is actually one of Nippon's industrial heroes, responsible for building Japan's most successful manufacturing robot prototype called the SCARA, which went on to become the single most successful industrial robot design in history.

These days, Yamafuji has dropped the heavy stuff and is now working on human-friendly, rather than industrially efficient, robots. And it's impossible not to be impressed by the good doctor's enthusiasm and ingenuity.

Surrounded by a litter of creations which include a self-righting egg ("for kids"), a robot unicycle that wobbles riderless between tables ("it doesn't fall over anymore"), a robot cat that ("generally") lands on its feet when you toss it off a shelf and not last and not least a cuddly toy that cutely batters its eyelids and turns its ears to humans who talk to it ("one of our female Ph.D. candidate's pet projects!"), Yamafuji plots the future.

"The US sees the next century in terms of the space and biotechnology industries. They have the lead there," he says holding up a picture of the space shuttle to represent the US. "We see it differently." He holds up a picture of a cartoon character to represent Japan. "We see it as Astroboy."

What?

"Japan leads the world in electromechanics. Astroboy is our symbol of the intelligent robot. We recognize that intelligent robots represent the next generation of technologies which will revolutionize industry and society!"

You're joking.

No, we are not. Japan is already the world leader in industrial robots. Of the forecast JY925 billion world demand for industrial robots in 2000, Japanese demand is rated at nearly JY700 billion. In 1996 Japan's industrial robot stock amounted to a staggering 59 percent of the world market, with Japan's 55 major robotics companies installing some 39,000 of 65,000 units of all descriptions. In the same year Japan used 277 robots for every 10,000 workers in manufacturing, three times as many as its nearest rival, Germany. OK, so we know Japan is armed to the teeth with car spraying, arc welding, multi-million transistor chip stamping robots. But how about getting less stupid and more helpful ones into our lives?

Well, Yamafuji already has an office/factory cleaning robot, which finds plugs when its battery is low on juice and is only two years from being human compatible (this means not crashing into you or mistaking one of your orifices for a plug socket). Bye-bye OLs, Hello RoboCop? You bet! Yamafuji's office helper cum security guard robot, under development by a consortium of seven companies including family names Seiko, Epson and Shimizu, could, he predicts, be able to lick the stamps, do the photocopying, pay bills, guard premises at night, answer the phone and make the tea, all "within five years."

Downstairs there is his prototype helper, a basic model of which has already been made by Yamaha. It looks like a mediaeval torture chair. But anyone inserting themselves into the chassis will have eight to ten times their normal power. A young research assistant nods enthusiastically when asked about the similarity of the helper with the fictional Cyberdyne Systems 101 Terminator. Development time? "Three to five years," answers Yamafuji. Tests on a very basic model to lift patients on and off beds are planned within months at a neighborhood hospital, he adds.

And if Japanese industry is right about the future, it will be back in your homes in a new way. Just as Sony et al. flooded our homes with TVs and Panasonic videos in the late twentieth century, they mean to add R2D2s in the kitchen, the backyard and even the massage parlor in the early twenty-first. Why? Because JARA (Japan Robot Association) predicts that the personal robot market will grow from JY25 billion in 2001 to JY100 billion in 2005 and on to JY1 trillion as soon as 2010.


ROBOT REVELATIONS

The first signs of this impending revolution are already here. Sony clearly believes tomorrow's toy is next week's industry. While Sony's D21 Lab refuses to reveal its research budget or staff resources, the future is clear, according to the company's Daniel Lintz.

"The D21 Lab believes in the vast potential of this market and everyone at the Lab is very excited about the future. We hope to create a completely new market that has never existed before and grow it into a new industry."

On May 11, Sony launched its first robotic pet puppy to go on sale to the general public. "AIBO" (Artificial Intelligence roBOt) can walk smoothly on four legs, incorporates "emotions such as happiness and anger," and can show the appropriate responses through complex actions, "enabling it to behave like a living creature, reacting to external stimuli and acting on its own judgment," as Sony put it. The poop-free pet will be on sale from June 1, only via the Internet and only to the first 5000 applicants - 3000 in Japan and 2000 in the US. (Applications will be accepted on a first come first serve basis starting at 9am on June 1. See the company website for details).

But it won't be long till AIBO loses its puppy-charm to some other robo-cutie - if Matsushita has its way, anyhow. After its robo-research is wrapped up in the next couple of years, Grannie won't be reaching for the laudanum any more. Her little helper will be Panasonic label's Winnie the Pooh-san lookalike home-help robot. "Most companies are thinking about entertainment robots," says Matsushita's Fukusaki Yoko, "but we are thinking of practically helping old people."

"Pooh-san" won't be able to run the bath, carry the shopping or serve up the ocha. But (s)he will be able to talk and comfort old folk, patiently putting up with their complaints and musings with, it is hoped, suitably pre-programmed looks of interest, at the affordable price of JY50,000.


MOVE OVER, ROBBIE

But the sci-fi stuff will really kick in when Japan's new creations start crossing the street in front of us, rescuing inebriated salarymen in the street or their kids from earthquake-smashed houses. And it's going to happen within ten years, courtesy of Honda. Honda might not be doing as well at F1 as it used to, but the fabled car manufacturer stunned researchers round the world in 1996. Pedestrian as it may sound, the auto maker achieved with legs in thirteen years what the world's best researchers had all but given up on (including Waseda University, with twenty-three years and wobbly results) - the Earth's first walking humanoid robot. Now don't get panicky. It's not due to start terminating yet. Weighing in at 130kg with a maximum speed of about 3km/h, the latest version P-3 can all but manage a few flights of stairs before its battery pack wears out. While Honda aims to double the work time in the immediate future and add teleoperation capabilities and more human-compatible intelligence, guide dog owners are unlikely to be contemplating that fateful last visit to the vet quite yet. But with a JY5 billion research grant from the boys at MITI, thousands of Gundam-programmed techie undergrads feverishly tinkering away and a cyborg JAWS for competition, it's only a matter of time before some George Lucas-inspired love child of C3-PO is shouting, "But Sir! The probability of successfully navigating Roppongi without beer is 3790-1."