Toyota intends to develop a full line of personal assistant robots

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Toyota has announced it intends to develop a full line of humanoid robots to serve as personal assistants. It's an exciting announcement from a company that has the financial and political will to actually carry it out. Japan leads the world in robotics, and while the U.S. focuses on military robots (terminator, anyone?), Japan is working to actually improve our quality of life through helper robots.

In a few years, personal assistant robots will be able to fetch items (and remember where you put them), guard your house, clean up the clutter in your home, engage in basic conversations, play music, and -- someday -- do your laundry. These are the kinds of things that really matter in terms of quality of life. Who wouldn't want a live-in helper who could handle basic chores? Humanoid robots from Toyota offer precisely that promise.

Yes, it's all many years away, but today we finally have working robots like Roomba and Aibo. There are more than 150,000 Aibo robots in homes around the world right now, and Sony is just getting started. When you consider the combined efforts of Toyota, Sony and Honda, it's exciting to realize that helpful household robots are truly on the way.

I predict the humanoid robotics industry will someday dwarf the automobile industry and the software industry. This will be the largest single industry on the planet, with hundreds of billions of dollars to be made by the right companies. Too bad the U.S. government can't see this coming and try to support our own fledgling robotics research. Today, the U.S. is at least a decade behind Japan, and I don't see any changes coming. Kudos to Japan for investing in technology that really means something.

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About the author: Mike Adams is a holistic nutritionist with a passion for teaching people how to improve their health He has authored and published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like health and the environment, reaching millions of readers with information that is saving lives and improving personal health around the world. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a maker of energy efficient LED lights that greatly reduce CO2 emissions. He also launched an online retailer of environmentally-friendly products (BetterLifeGoods.com) and uses a portion of its profits to help fund non-profit endeavors. He's also the founder and CEO of a well known email mail merge software developer whose software, 'Email Marketing Director,' currently runs the NaturalNews email subscriptions. Adams volunteers his time to serve as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and practices nature photography, Capoeira, Pilates and organic gardening.


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