EMIEW, Hitachi’s robot, has started its “show” at Tokyo Bay’s Sheraton Hotal (next to Disneyland Tokyo). The manufacturer wants to show to the public that its robot feels at ease in a hotel and can be used as an assistant, guide or bell boy. Even though it’s not really used in hotels yet, Hitachi whows that its EMIEW caould really live and work amongst the humans. I have to admit that I was surprised to see that this robot is very agile, fast and stable on its 2 wheels. It can carry a small bag, it can show things whilst standing still without tipping over, and these things are really complicated to program on 2 wheels (bipeds are already difficult to program, so imagine these wheeled robots). Make sure to check out the video (6mins 4secs)! You will notice a small glitch in the video, and I think that HD cameras don’t like the DSLR flashes too much, especially when there are like 10 of them shooting pictures at the same time… so our apologies for the small hiccups (especially at the end of the movie).

FLASH VIDEO START HERE

The Torrent of our HD video (WMV9HD 720p) is available here:

EMIEW HITACHI HDTV 720p
(Progessive Download HTTP “right click, save-as”)

EMIEW HITACHI HDTV 720p
(Streaming Windows Media, Needs 6MBits/s minimum)