Very good reading on News.com today: “Baby steps for Dexter the robot“. Its a long piece, mostlty focused on Dexter, a human-sized robot being built by US-based start-up Anybots. The young company is quite ambitious:

“Anybots wants its creations to be all-purpose, not specialized à la Roomba. The goal is nothing less than to create a robot that can be taught to do all the things humans can do.”

The whole article is worth reading and gives a good view on the state of advancement in the humanoid robots fields. Reading this article, one gets the feelling that the US have eventually decided to catch up with Japan in the humanoid race.

Speaking of Japan, there is an interesting interview of Stephen Keeney, North American Asimo project leader at Honda, on Tech Digest. Nothing really new here, but it’s a good summary of the goals (and achieved steps) of the Asimo project, which remains one of the most advanced large size humanoid robot in the world. This quote from Keeney is quite noticeable:

“Asimo is a new technology that will continue to evolve, but we hope in about 10 years we’ll start to see versions working in homes or hospitals. I just hope by the time I retire, I’ll be able to have an Asimo!”

Wow. 10 years!