Nao – Social Robot Futures

“Future Realities”: RoboUniverse, Tokyo Bay

January 15, 2016October 12, 2021

By Teresa Heffernan

In early October 2015, we attended the CEATEC (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) that included the newly formed RoboUniverse exhibition and an industry trade show. This year’s conference theme was: “NEXT: Today’s Dreams, Future Realities”; Sony, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, NEC and hundreds of other exhibitors displayed their wares. It took place in greater Tokyo at the Makuhari Messe in the Mihama-u ward in Chiba Prefecture where pedestrian skywalks hover above multiple lanes of traffic; endless shopping malls boast brand stores and dozens of restaurants; and spotless pavement stretches in all directions.

Henn-na Hotel: Kawaii Robots and “the Ultimate in Efficiency”

November 6, 2015September 16, 2021

By Teresa Heffernan

The bus ride from Nagasaki airport to the Henn-na Hotel in Huis Ten Bosch is lovely–we pass rice fields and orange trees laden with fruit, the hills are densely forested, lush and green, and the magnificent Omura Bay is calm and sparkling. Huis Ten Bosch Co., in Sasebo city, opened in 1992 as an “eco-friendly future city” with a seventeenth-century Dutch-themed resort town and amusement park. It covers 375 acres, cost $3bn and is described by Richard Hendy in his wonderful blog as “the greatest artefact by far of those crazy eighties years.”