Honda’s Asimo is now autonomous, brings us closer to robot takeover | Technology News Blog - Yahoo! News

Sure, other humanoid robots can do pushups, play ping-pong, and tweet, but Honda's Asimo remains one of the most recognizable names among the lot. The pint-sized bot has been around for quite a while, but it's recently received an update from Honda that equips it with the world's first autonomous behavior technology. In other words, Asimo can now move on its own with no need for human input.

In order to make Asimo an autonomous machine, Honda had to determine and meet three necessary factors. The first is to make it perfectly balanced so it can walk like a human without toppling over. Next is to give it the capacity to recognize movements around it using sensors. And last is to make it capable of deciding on a behavior appropriate to its surroundings, in order to avoid things like bumping into people and objects.

Working toward making Asimo useful in everyday settings, Honda has retooled the robot with a variety of new features. The new Asimo can recognize a particular voice even while people are speaking simultaneously. It can also predict the direction a person is headed so it can quickly take an alternate path. At 13.2 lbs. lighter than the previous model and with a new pair of stronger legs, it's now quicker on its feet and can run backward or continuously hop on one leg.

Its lower limbs aren't the only ones upgraded — the new Asimo is so deft at using its human-like hands that it can twist caps off glass bottles and hold soft paper cups without crushing them to a pulp. It can even use sign language gestures that usually require complex finger movements. Of course, it will take much more than these improvements to make Asimo prepared for more practical applications, but this move is definitely a step in the right direction.