Magazine "Let's Build Astro Boy" to Inaugurate April 4

Here's a really ingenious scheme to have Astro Boys built by the subscribers of a magazine that weekly delivers parts, one an issue, of a family robot in the image of Astro Boy created by the legendary master cartoonist Osamu Tezuka, it was reported February 22.

Astro Boy comes to life at every home, say Kodansha Publishing House and NTT Docomo. The magazine aptly titled "Let's Build Astro Boy" is a weekly that comes with all necessary parts of a family robot Astro Boy mounting artificial intelligence (AI) that can recognize every family member, conversing differently from one family to another, even perform radio calisthenics.

Subscribers are only to keep on assembling one part an issue till September 2018 for 184,474 yen for 70 issues.

Makoto Tezuka, son of Osamu Tezuka who now heads the Tezuka Production, told the press at the announcement meet February 22:
"My father's Astro Boy debuted in TV anime and now he revives as a genuine robot."

The robot Astro Boy stands 44 centimeters tall - roughly one-third in height of the manga original. He weighs approximately 1.4 kg, light enough to hug him around.

The robot Astro Boy is fully equipped with AI and a camera and is a lot wiser than what he appears to be as a charming toy. He recognizes every family member and remembers his/her birthday and sings "Happy Birthday" on each birthday.

He is built with the spontaneous speed platform developed by NTT Docomo and can recognize the meaning of each word and study and enrich from the contents of conversation what flower(s) certain party likes, etc. 

The robot Astro Boy can voluntarily mention favorite topics and the level of intimacy rises in proportion to the amount of conversation, etc.

If you link your robot Astro Boy to home LAN, he can further gain intelligence to even supply local information on, for instance, the forthcoming bargain sales at nearby stores. (Nathan Shiga) 

Source: Nikkei