POLLING POLLEN

Sayane Egawa, an employee of Japanese weather forecasting company Weathernews, displays some of the 1,000 pod-shaped pollen-counting robots called “Pollen-robot,” which are ready to be shipped as nationwide monitors to observe pollen levels ahead of the coming hay fever season, at the company’s headquarters in Chiba, suburban Tokyo, yesterday. The Pollen-robot, which has two LED eyes and glows a range of five different colors to indicate pollen levels, will be placed outside houses and can send reports on pollen, temperatures, humidity and air pressure data to the company through the Internet.Jan 31, 2013

Photo: AFP