Word: robotic
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...past several years, Japan has committed several tens of millions of dollars to an industry whose revenues it hopes could surge to nearly $70 billion by 2025. Japan already employs over a quarter of a million industrial robot workers -more than any other nation - in an effort to counter high labor costs and to support further mechanization of its industries, and would like to see that number go up to one million over the next 15 years. "Robotics is to be for the Japanese economy in the 21st century what automobiles were in the 20th," says Jennifer Robertson, a professor...
...Japan hopes this new robotic army could be part of the answer to an ever-declining birthrate and shrinking workforce in a country famously wary of opening its shores to immigrants. Foreign-born residents make up less than 2% of the country's total population, compared to 12% in the U.S. Although dependent on the type of industry, one robot can replace several workers, music to the ears of many government officials who know that the nation's declining work force will weigh heavily on future pension and health care programs...
...Beyond large humanoid robots or industrial ones, Japanese researchers have also created a number of consumer-friendly inventions made for fun or therapy, like pet seals and robot chef that can whip up pancakes. But no matter how clever or cuddly, even in Japan commercial robots have a serious flaw: their price. Consumers balk at their heavy price tags, which typically run into the thousands. Sony's AIBO robotic dog, which cost $2,000 per pup, opened to much fanfare only to be cut in 2006, seven years after its introduction...
...device on a Baghdad street. After some studiously cool guy talk, to reassure his men that this is just another day at the office, the staff sergeant strides toward the contaminated area in his heavy haz-mat suit, looking like an astronaut on Mars, complete with an R2D2-like robot on wheels. He disables the IED, and as he walks away, his comrades spot a man about to use a cell phone. The spaceman turns and runs. Too late: BOOM! The bomb explodes and so does he. Blood seeps down his helmet visor like red rain on the wrong side...
...Which brings us to Mikaela (Megan Fox), Sam's polymer princess, whom Bay treats as if she were last month's Penthouse Pet, with a mixture of disdain and need. "You're hot, but you ain't so bright," one robot tells her, and you wonder if it is speaking the boss's mind. Later, it humps her leg. Throughout all this, Fox appears stoic, perhaps because she's concentrating on keeping her lips permanently parted and wet (she looks as if she's been interrupted in the midst of dining on lobster with drawn butter). Mikaela is worried about...