Robotics in Japan

The best robots in Japan are people!

These highly-skilled craftsmen should be working with robotics, not making the parts themselves. Their manual skills should be the basis for the design of robots that can do these tasks. Robotics is not about making stupid nonsense like this:

Real robotics is about developing motor, sensor and control systems that can be combined in previously unanticipated ways to produce new kinds of machines that can do useful work. We need automated design systems that can combine elements from a growing repertoire of mechanical techniques. This cannot be done in a competitive business environment, therefore we need the economic and legal framework under which we can engage in mass collaboration.  The basis for this mass collaboration is secure communications. We need secure communications, people!