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Monday, March 16, 2009
Article copied and pasted from Daily Mail link, more stuff (on Barbie) after it.
Robots could soon be gracing the catwalk [they aren't already?!], thanks to a black-haired cybernetic beauty who is preparing to make her debut at a fashion show in Japan.
Fetchingly named HRP-4C, the humanoid has 30 motors in her body that allows her to walk and move her arms as well as eight motors on its face to create expressions like anger and surprise.
The humanoid has 30 motors to help her to strut her stuff
In a demonstration the robot tottered out, blinking, and said, 'Hello, everyone,' in a tiny feminine voice while its mouth moved.
Weighing just 6st and 9pounds she is light enough to fit into the size 0 crowd. However, the robot's developers are doubtful HRP-4C currently makes the grade as a fashionista.
During the display she kept looking surprised, opening its mouth and eyes in a stunned expression, when the demonstrator had asked it to smile or look angry.
The 'cybernetic human' has been designed to look like an average Japanese woman and portrays anger (L) and surprise (R)
Her walk was also not quite ready for the Paris Collection, partly because she must keep her knees bent the whole time. The robot has sensors in its feet but lacks the sensitive balance of a real human.
'Technologically, it hasn't reached that level,' said Hirohisa Hirukawa, from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology.
'Even as a fashion model, people in the industry told us she was short and had a rather ordinary figure.'
The robot model greets her waiting public at a display in Japan
The developers said the big challenge in creating the robot was making the small 'feminine' parts.
HRP-4C is 5ft2" and was designed to look like an average Japanese woman, although she is clothed in what appears to be a silver and black space-suit.
Watch HRP-4C in action here...
She has yet to clear safety standards to share the catwalk with human models, so will appear in her own special section in a Tokyo fashion show next week.
The robotic framework for the HRP-4C without the face and other coverings will go on sale for about 20 million yen (£150,000) each.
The programming technology will be made public so other people can come up with fun moves for the robot, the scientists said.
Japan boasts one of the leading robotics industries in the world, and the government is pushing to develop the industry as a road to growth.
Automaker Honda Motors has developed Asimo, which can walk and talk, although it doesn't pretend to look human.
Other robots, like the ones from Hiroshi Kobayashi at the Tokyo University of Science and Hiroshi Ishiguro at Osaka University, have more human-like faces and have been tested as receptionists.
But demands are growing for socially useful robots, such as those for caring for the elderly and the sick, said Yoshihiro Kaga, a government official in the trade and industry ministry.
'We want this market to grow as an industry,' he said.
[Thought this was funny (America's Next Top Model audition "stampede" love the dehumanization language all media sources use for it! Stampede's main definition is an animal stampede, originally was used in that way anyway.), everyone wants to be a robotic Model. Note the checkerboard floor inside the building, you can see it through the revolving door. PS MK is now rockin' the necrophiliac aka white skin/blood red lips look, sorry.]
Fashion Runway
Every girl's dream [...really?] can come true on the Fashion Runway. Girls can experience a real runway show by getting dressed in fashions from world-renowned designers. Girls find out what it is like to be a real model by striking a pose on the Fashion Runway.
Victims will be taken on trips to places like this for programming, obviously all the dolls/mirrors/spiral staircase help with that.
They Believe in Girls' Dreams...
To illustrate what I was saying about dolls and depersonalization/dehumanization continuing the 50th anniversary celebrations of Barbie, this photo shoot by Karl Lagerfield (asshole fashion Chanel luminary) had a real male model portrayed with a life-size barbie doll (the implication isn't hard to understand here...).
There's been some controversy over the "Tattoo Barbie" (click link for longer FOX version which I couldn't get to stop playing auto), there was one in 1999 that I think was also noted in the reports, even more blatantly Monarch as it was only butterfly tattoos. Barbie was always built to be representative of a depersonalized sex-slave (it was based on the prostitute [based on a prostitute character from a cartoon] Bild Lilli doll [wiki tip-toes around it]) so to show this here are the lingerie Barbies released by Mattel as part of the Fashion Model Barbie Collection. Below Lilli is pictured in a 1950's ad, I've already covered this (Handler being it's creator etc) though in this post so won't go into detail.
Sticking with the Asian sex-slave theme above (note red shoes), see Paprika post and such.
This leopard-print skirt one was also part of the Fashion Model Collection showing dehumanization and (these are very similar [especially in outright programming] so I will stick with using the dehumanization term in future, just wanted to make people aware of some of the other terms used in MK and DID) depersonalization (animal leopard + doll).
