After scaling the cliff walls of the Grand Canyon and driving the Le Mans racetrack for 24 hours, a tiny Japanese robot is set for a new challenge — Hawaii’s grueling Ironman Triathlon course.
Fitted with three different bodies and three rechargeable batteries, the hand-sized “Evolta” from electronics firm Panasonic will swim, bicycle and run its way through one of the world’s toughest triathlon routes, the company said yesterday.
“This is very tough even for a sportsman, but I think it is worth a challenge,” said Tomotaka Takahashi, who created the green-and-white toy-like robot. “The robot will encounter a lot of hardships on its way, but I hope it will overcome them all and succeed in the end.”
Photo: AFP
The robot will have to swim, run and bike for a total of approximately 230km. The time given to complete the task is one week or 168 hours, which is 10 times longer than it would take a sportsman.
“Evolta’s height is just one-tenth of a grown man, so we figured out that it would take it 10 times more time,” Takahashi added.
Of the three bodies, which include one mounted on a tiny bicycle and another in a round hoop with a supporting rear wheel, the 51cm high swimming robot — mounted on a curved, fin-like blade with its arms stretched out — presented special challenges.
Photo: Reuters
“I had to think of the ways to make it water-proof and protect it from mold as much as possible,” Takahashi said.
The batteries the robot bears on its back, which go on sale in Japan on Oct. 21, can be recharged up to 1,800 times by being placed on a recharger pad.
The triathlon challenge begins on Oct. 24 and will continue non-stop for seven days and nights. The actual Ironman World Championship takes place early next month.
Photo: AFP
Among its other achievements, Evolta has also walked the 500km from Tokyo to the old Japanese capital of Kyoto.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS