Lexus (Toyota) has just launched this teaser video to show an hoverboard similar to those that appeared on Back to the Future. It looks like magic but it’s just the meissner effect in action. The surface looks like concrete but it isn’t.
Toyota is promising to explain how it works in the official website of the project.
Last Tuesday I had the chance to meet Pepper, the robot designed and built by Softbank that is planned to be released to the market next year for 200,000 yen (around 1,400 EUR or 2,000 USD). There are two prototypes at the Softbank shop in Harajuku and you can interact with them. I tried to have a conversation with one of them but I couldn’t get anything more than “Good morning”, “I don’t understand you, could you repeat what you just said?” and “See you next time. Thanks for visiting our shop!”. He detected that it was a week day (I should be working instead of visiting the Softbank shop) and he asked me “Don’t you have to work today? I see that you are taking a day off”.
Honda engineers have been working for more than 30 years trying to create a humanoid robot: Asimo. For the last few years the appearance of Asimo has barely changed, however every year that goes by he has smoother moves, he is more agile and is faster when walking, running or even dancing. The newest version of Asimo was shown to the world for the first time last week in New York. In the video you can see how he is able to kick a ball, serve a drink or even shake hands.
Source: Japan Today