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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Nov. 30, 2007 / 20 Kislev 5768

Robot Geisha

By Greg Crosby


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Last year the big "toy" that everyone was lining up in freezing weather to buy was Playstation 3. I can remember about a million years ago when the huge phenomenon was Cabbage Patch Kids. People were getting beat up in stores over them and then there was a shortage and you couldn't even buy one for ten or twenty times the price.


Now comes something really unusual. Here's the perfect gift to give your spoiled rotten kids that have everything else. Or maybe the ideal present for the guy or gal who wants to be waited on hand and foot. From Japan comes the ultimate robot — a pearly white little thing that looks sort of like E.T. and can help you get out of bed in the morning, talk with you, and even make your breakfast.


As reported by Reuters, the robot's name is Twendy-One, named as a 21st century version of a previous robot called Wendy. Its most important feature is that it has soft hands and fingers that can gently grip things. It also has enough strength to actually support humans as they sit and stand and it uses supple movements which respond to human touch.


Twendy-One can pick up a loaf of bread without crushing it and can serve toast and help lift people out of bed. That puts the robot three for three with my wife. "It's the first robot in the world with this much system integration," said Shigeki Sugano, professor of mechanical engineering at Waseda University, who led the Twendy-One project (http://twendyone.com) and demonstrated the result. "It's difficult to balance strength with flexibility."

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The robot is described as being is a little shorter than an average Japanese woman at about five feet tall, but heavy-set at 245 lb. With long arms and a face shaped like a giant squashed bean it resembles the Steven Spielberg space alien movie character E.T. So you might say it looks cute in an extraterrestrial way.


Twendy-One has taken close to seven years and a budget of several million dollars to pull together all the high-tech features, including the ability to speak and 241 pressure-sensors in each silicon-wrapped hand, into the soft and flexible robot. This isn't one of your old time run-of-the-mill Mattel wind ups — this baby is the real deal. During the demonstration, the robot put toast on a plate and retrieved ketchup from a refrigerator when asked, after greeting its "patient for the demonstration" with a robotic "good morning" and "bon appetit."


Sugano said he hoped to develop a commercially viable robot that could help the elderly and maybe work in offices by 2015 with a price tag of around $200,000. But for now, it is still a work in progress. Twendy-One has just 15 minutes of battery life and its computer-laden back has a tendency to overheat after each use. "The robot is so complicated that even for us, it's difficult to get it to move," Sugano said.


You can just imagine the rush on the stores when they finally get Twendy-One's act together and ship them over here. When that day comes, and the thing can be bought for a couple hundred grand, you can bet that every rich little princess in America will be putting this one on her list. And rich daddies will be standing in lines outside electronic stores at 4:AM on Black Friday to be the first to buy one. Hey, this guy beats Chatty Cathy and Mr. Machine hands down — not to mention Cabbage Patch Kids.

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JWR contributor Greg Crosby, former creative head for Walt Disney publications, has written thousands of comics, hundreds of children's books, dozens of essays, and a letter to his congressman. A freelance writer in Southern California, you may contact him by clicking here.

Greg Crosby Archives

© 2006, Greg Crosby

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