CANNES, France–Furry talking robot “carers” able to raise the alarm if their elderly owner needs help will play a key role in helping the world’s ever-growing aging population, trials in Japan have shown.

As well as playing faithful companion to older people living alone, this new generation of “live-in” domestic robot will also provide invaluable daily help to the average family–performing tasks from managing the family schedule to problem-spotting to guard-dog.

“The next generation of robots now coming on to the market will improve the daily life of our aging population,” Toshikazu Muroi from the Osaka Prefectural Government told Agence France-Presse in an interview.

Though many governments are beginning to grapple with the looming problem of facing ever-bigger ever-older legions of retirees, the issue is particularly acute in Japan, which has the biggest population of people aged 65 and over of the industrialized nations.

Muroi said that recent trials carried out in the Osaka region highlighted that cuddly hi-tech carers had a very useful role in providing valuable companionship as well as monitoring the safety of their elderly owners.

And the people taking part in the project “really liked the robots as they are like pets,” Muroi added.

Agence France-Presse (via Inq7.net)

After the factory robots came Aibo, the robotic dog, and Ashimo, the humanoid robot, and now they are building the robotic maid. What’s next? Here are some according to the movies and television—the robotic lover or child (Artificial Intelligence: AI). Robotic workers will replace the human working class and then overthrow their creators (Animatrix: The Second Renaissance). Sentient robots that want to wipe out humans (Terminator) or strive to be human (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Bicentennial Man).

From this point, we still have a long way to go.

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Original address: http://www.frederickcalica.com/archives/000001.html

“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet . . .”
Romeo and Juliet
Act 2 Scene 1, lines 85-86
William Shakespeare (1546-1616)

But according to Kabalarian Philosophy there is. I found this website during college days when I logged-on on the net during a lunch break to entertain myself. (By the way, I am not the chatter type). So this is what my name tell about myself:

The name of Frederick gives you a very individual, reserved, serious nature.

Right… but not always.

You prefer to be alone with your own thoughts, rather than in the company of others.

Some of my friends might agree on this one.

This name restricts spontaneity in association and the fluency of your verbal expression. When you are required to express yourself in personal matters requiring finesse and diplomacy, you feel awkward and embarrassed. Although you realize perfectly well what is expected of you, you are unable to find the right words, and hence you end up saying something inappropriate in a candid way.

I always hate to do the talking. Verbally, that is.

You can express your deeper thoughts and feelings best through writing.

Hmm. I think so.

I presented this site to some of my friends and colleagues. They have some mixed reactions. Though I do not know what their philosophy is about, hey, I have fun reading my name interpretation.

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Original URL: http://www.frederickcalica.com/archives/000002.html

A new year… a new hope. Whatever!

After I got over the firecrackers’ eardrum-breaking sounds (not to mention the foul smell), I asked myself, “What now?”

As tradition goes, make a New Year’s resolution. But I lost faith in resolutions over the past few years. I can’t keep even one. So the list is just recycled and recycled and recycled … and, oh, you got the point. It was just plain useless. Then, I decided to make a list. It is not the things that “I will do” but the things that “I did but not doing it anymore.” Strange. Stranger still, there is only one item on the list. Writing.

During my high school days at Sacred Heart School and college days at Lorma Colleges, I enjoyed my classes that involved writing themes, essays, or stories. I also became a member of both schools’ student publications. I missed those times.

I decided to make a weblog to post even a little piece of my writing on it. And this is not for new-year-resolution-tradition-whatever’s sake but for Auld lang syne.

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: https://web.archive.org/web/20040209162428/http://www.frederickcalica.com/archives/000001.html