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Japanese ventures team up to expand home-use robot market+
(Japan Economic Newswire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) TOKYO, June 18_(Kyodo) _ Four Japanese venture companies developing robots said Wednesday they have set up a joint organization to cooperate in expanding the market for next-generation home-use robots to aid people in their everyday lives.
Kitakyushu-based Tmsuk Co., Osaka-based Vstone Co., Tokyo-based ZMP Inc. and Business Design Laboratory Co. headquartered in Nagoya set up the Association for Market Creation of Future Generation Robots to cooperate in information and technology sharing, development, sales, marketing, advertising and seeking tie-ups with overseas developers.
Yoichi Takamoto, chairman of the new association, said at a news conference that he wants to nurture the home-use robot market to more than 10 times its current size of about 20,000-30,000 units in use.
Takamoto said there is already a market for industrial robots such as those for plant automation, but businesses have not yet really established home-use robots as developers have worked individually to date.
"We have decided to get together to create a new culture of robots," said Takamoto, who also leads Tmsuk, the producer of a variety of robots for purposes ranging from disaster rescue to home surveillance.
Its Roborior home surveillance robot enables owners to keep an eye on their homes through a camera installed on the robot which can be controlled remotely by mobile phone.
The robot can also send alarms to registered mobile phones when it detects an anomaly with its sensor.
Among other key products of the participating companies is Business Design Laboratory's Ifbot robot that can chat. It is now primarily used in hospitals and elderly nursing care facilities to converse with elderly people, the developer said.
ZMP has developed the Miuro music-playing robot and Vstone has produced the Tichno humanoid, a robot that walks on two legs.
The new organization's office will be located at Business Design Laboratory's headquarters in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture.
At the end of the news conference held in Tokyo, the heads of the four companies lined up as the Tichno humanoid robot walked toward them. While the presidents vowed to make robots more common in people's lives, the Tichno robot said, "Let's make utmost efforts so that many of our robot friends can be successful in the market."
The presidents of the firms held the flag of the new organization, which was handed over by another robot while the Miuro robot played music for the scene.
Copyright ? 2008 Kyodo News International, Inc.
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