热爱机器人

by Yan

Loving the Machine 是加拿大科技作家(science/technology writer)Timothy Hornyak 的一本书,关注日本人对机器人的深情。Hornyak 还写一个与书同名的娱乐 blog。via: Improbable Research

The book (published by Kodansha International, ISBN 4770030126) is filled with beautiful photos of robots and their kith and kin. A 12-image progression spread across pages 102 and 103 shows a twenty-year progression of one series of machines from a two-legs-and-a-crotch metallic walking machine to its lissome fullbodied plastic-clad descendant. The book begins with a quick look at early Japanese puppetry, hops, skips and jumps to a most impressive tea-serving automaton in 1796 (and much later, in 2002, to a kit version of same), and so on. Most of the book celebrates the age of industrial robots, toys, and much-hyped robo-animals and companion and therapeutic robots.

The book concentrates on the lure, lore and excitement of Japanese robotophilia. It dips generously into the relationship between robotics, fantasy comics, and style; and delves very lightly into the engineering behind and within the critters.

tea-serving automaton,这个似乎在哪儿看到过,不知道中文怎么翻译的。