Zedy’s New Toy: A Robot from Japan

Posted by Edwin Tam On 15 Dec 2009

It’s not a fashionista robot. But a mini, scurrying thing that pushes a faceted ball around on its controller’s commands. Mr Roboto is a smart fella who knows how to avoid thieving robots and dock at his recharging station while looking insufferably cute at the same time. Imagine a swarm of mini Mr Robotos as they tackle, track and steal the ball enroute to goal.

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Earth2Tech Tracking Map 

“Green” is the most-despised, hated and over-used word for 2008 (I agree; a lamp made from broken CDs was “Green”. Rubbish!!!…), but it was the cornerstone for last year’s Clean Tech companies.

Of course, there are many candidates to single out, praise and dissect. But since this is my blog and I’m grabbing info off the net, I’ll point you to Treehugger’s top 6 Clean Tech startups for 2009.

What I like about the list is that half of them have something to do with solar power.

As you might know, sunshine is Singapore’s most abundant resource – along with Orchard Towers, fines and F1 Night Races. We can certainly enlist the sun to help power our homes, laptops, and air-cons that turn our offices in winter-wonderlands. 

Compressed Air CarAnother possible Clean Tech product that we can use – given our love for jams and automobiles – are cars that run on air

These toaster-lookalikes are built for city-dwellers and start-stop traffic.

Perfect.

Singaporeans live, work, eat, travel and play within a city that’s 40km across and beset by many, many traffic lights.

In fact, the price tag – a mere €13,000 (about SGD$26,000) [New car prices here] – should also send motorheads into a frenzy of auto-fixated orgasms.

However, the government levies a fairly complicated road tax that makes it more expensive for electric/hybrid car owners; even though they were reduced in July 2008.

To whit, the 6-month road tax for:
1. 3311cc Petrol Car  = $1,435.75
2. 268bhp (200kW) Hybrid Car = $1,724.31

So Mr Hybrid pays $288.56 more than Petrol dude!

Still, it’s much better than in 2007 when Mr Hybrid had to cough up more than $2,000 for road taxes. Maybe we’re actually moving towards being “Green” instead of just talking about it…

I’ll believe it when I see it.

Source: TreeHugger


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