Science Faction!

Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Alien, Mass Effect, Babylon 5, Stargate...

Science fiction has a lot to answer for!

It’s perfectly happy to skyrocket our hopes and expectations for the future, far and near. However once you close the back cover, watch the credits roll or see the immortal words “Executive Producer Gene Roddenberry” plastered across your tellybox, its back to the grinding monotony of 2012.

And not a Starship in sight!

In a bid to rectify this, we’ll be taking a gander at the glaring disparity between some of the more iconic Sci-Fi tropes and their modern day equivalents.

Who knows, perhaps it’ll be the kick in the pants needed to get all those Research and Development boffins working on my goddamn Iron Man suit!

What We Want... Androids!

Websters defines Android as a mobile robot with a human form. Seriously, it does. And while their design can vary from the shiny pseudo humanoids of iRobot to the indistinguishable Cylon ‘skinjobs’ of Battlestar, the concept of robots that look human, standing ever vigilant to our beck and call is an enticing one... apparently we’re all a lot more into the whole slavery buzz than we’d care to admit...

Skynet’s T800 (i.e. The Terminator) is an example popularised by modern culture. But not necessarily a good one because he wasn’t particularly pleasant. Unless you count Judgement Day. Which you should, because it’s deadly.

A better model, and arguably the most famous Android in recent Science Fiction is Star Trek: The Next Generation’s neural networked walking super-computer, Data.

Seriously, who wouldn’t want to be friends with this guy? Beyond the ability to deactivate his emotions with a jerk of his neck, he also sports a positronic brain, resulting in a storage capacity of 800 quadrillion bits and a total linear computational speed of 60 trillion operations per second.

Combined with his expressionless, pasty white face and chances are he’d prove quite handy at a poker table. Obviously we’re not the only ones who see value in such a companion. In 2005, nerdcore group ‘The Futuristic Sex Robotz’ dedicated a song to Data entitled "The Positronic Pimp."
Spoiler: It's not great.

Plus he has a cat named Spot. Who doesn’t like cats?!

Felines the world over are crying out for Metahuman Masters. But Data, or androids of his ilk are simply unavailable at the moment. Instead they have to settle for...

What We Got... Asimo!

A 1.3m tall, 119lb android from Honda, the Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility is a far cry from Lieutenant Commander of the Federation Flagship.

That said, Asimo (a name derived from the Japanese words ashita "tomorrow" and ashi "leg" and only coincidentally similar to Isaac Asimov) is probably far more willing to pour you a cold one. So it’s easy to forgive.



The most advanced humanoid robot to date, Asimo has 34 combined degrees of freedom in its joints, can hop on one leg, run at a jaunty 3.7mph and manage a flight of stairs far better than Robocop’s ED-209... who couldn’t manage them at all really.

Asimo can even dance, which makes it more human than most. In fact, during his 10th birthday celebration in October 2010, Asimo preformed a dance routine with Japanese dancer and celebrity Papaya Suzuki.

Asimo’s eyes (read. Cameras if you’ve no time for whimsy) can detect both distance and direction of obstructing objects. It can also respond to voice commands and hand gestures, recognizing up to ten faces at a time and respond using their names.

A feat Tech Journos still wrestle with! Names, am I right folks?

Perhaps the globe’s sole android celebrity, Asimo is a regular feature at Innoventions at Disneyland. It has also made appearances at the likes of CES, the Miraikan Museum in Japan and Ars Electronica in Austria. Naturally, in March 2005, Asimo walked the red carpet at the world premier of Robots.

In 2008, Asimo conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a rendition of the Impossible Dream while in December 2011 its crowning achievement came in an appearance on QI. Asimo gifted Stephen Fry with a glass of water, insisted on dancing with Jo Brand and went on to win the competition with a whopping 32 points.



Like so many devices in the Tech Industry, battery life is the Achilles Load Bearing Piston, uh, Heel! Asimo can strut his space age stuff for approximately sixty minutes. Once his reserves deplete however, it requires roughly 90 minutes of recharge.

These days Asimo can charge its battery without aid, taking into consideration the movement of people around it before discerning the appropriate route to take. That said if he needs assistance, Asimos can working alongside one another to perform certain tasks.

Robots.
Working together.
This is how it starts...