There was the rare and rewarding sighting of an elusive Architeuthis by the Tokyo scientific community's subaquatic paparazzi, a contrived encounter that cost the subject giant squid and gained researchers, journalists and exotic seafood restauranteurs exactly one tentacle — but a collection of Japanese headlines and press pool photographs without robots is like a literary commodities market with no one shouting the price of Holsteins from across the floor.
So we will regard the recent Tokyo presentation by Tmsuk Co., Ltd., former subsidiary of food processing manufacturer Thames Corporation and a youthfully independent Japanese robotics company, whose contributions to man's 21st-Century Pygmalion labor redress Tmsuk's offenses to Western pronunciation. Tim-sook? Ta-missuk? Tmsuk doesn't say, possibly because addressing the company itself becomes less important as one inspects its thirteen-year legacy in — all together, now — working "to create a safe and comfortable society in which people and robots can coexist." In 1993, Tmsuk posted TMSUK-1 at the Thames headquarters front desk as a mobile greeter; TMSUK-2 served tea, chatted about the weather and notified staff when it was due for a recharge, all in a charming dialect. By the end of the decade, Tmsuk produced the bell-skirted TMSUK-4, capable of varying degrees of directed and autonomous movement and activity.
It was TMSUK-4 that introduced Roborior, the company's commercial overture to cutting-edge Japanese households. Christened from a compound of "robot" and "interior," the squat, white, globular machine — oddly cherubic, if with a fleeting resemblance to the lethal excursion pods from 2001: A Space Odyssey — is a likely competitor of Mitsubishi Heavy's Wakamaru. Entryways, valuables and pets are all under the aegis of Roborior, which sends a live video transmission to its masters by cell phone. The unit is said to emit a soft glow, drawing those nearby into "a relaxing mood." Judging from a corresponding pool photograph that phrase may be a euphemism for "trancelike docility." All the better: for over ten thousand dollars more, Wakamaru is programmed to stand guard. If an LED anodyne can prevent the unfortunate burgling of an heirloom, home theater components or even little Gongoro, well then, let intruders see neon pink, blue and purple haze.
