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Clip description
Reporter Hayden Turner is meeting ASIMO, the world’s most sophisticated robot. It has been created by a car company in a secret laboratory in Japan, where the reporter is not even allowed to show the faces of the engineers who built it.
Curator’s notes
There’s a sense that we’re looking into the future and that everything is still under wraps as Hayden Turner takes us through this state-of-the-art Japanese robotics laboratory. We meet ASIMO – which stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility, but also suggests Isaac Asimov and his great science fiction books.
The filming is crisp and the technology explained well for non-scientific viewers. The story of how the various generations of robots have arrived at this prototype, that can walk like a human, is utterly intriguing. The item cleverly uses the Japanese firm’s promotional footage to explain the various stages of the robot’s history and development so we can understand the genius of having a robot that can walk and talk rather like us.
A recognisable feature of the Beyond magazine science programs has always been the reporting. Over the years they have discovered much new talent – usually young and hip people very much at ease with the camera. Hayden Turner is no exception. This particular series of Beyond Tomorrow also saw Sara Groen make her debut appearance.
