On Monday of this week, the Protein Robotic Hardcore [PRH] had a day out to see Honda's latest creation, Asimo, at the Science Museum in London. Asimo is the latest in a series of bipedal (two legged) robots which began in 1986 with EO, a robot that took 20 seconds for each step. The development of biped robots has primarily taken place in Japan and it was only in 1993 with the P1 prototype, standing 187cm (6'2") that the true 'modern' robot arrived, as this had a head and was human-sized although it weighted 176 kg (386lb. Asimo is a culmination of this development and comes replete with anti-collision software, which allows it to walk around groups of people, and to detect which side of it a person is standing. In this way it begins its walk with the opposite foot, thus avoiding stepping on someone's toes. Although Asimo can only walk at 1 mile per hour, it or it's successor will not doubt accelerate this in the near future, mainly due to composites and quick-acting motors and software. Asimo himself (herself?) is light, weighing in at 40Kg due to a magnesium body. Over a Sony they have been building Qrio, a much smaller robot, recently demonstrated in Japan running and throwing a ball. This robot is in the same vein as the Aibo and Sony are probably conditioning the general public for a Mark II model which will sell to the home. Whilst Fijutsu is also having a pop at the robotics market with its HOAP-2 which syill may also be a sellable commercial robot. Finally, it is important to remember that as robots develop, they will, in theory, need to bow to Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics in his novel Runaround: 1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. He then added law Zero: Law Zero: A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. To see the future of robotics, and perhaps of bipeds, we will need to look skyward, as new missions to the moon and Mars will undoubtedly advance the technology greatly. Perhaps we will even see robotic astronuauts that can repair telescopes such as Hubble without endangering humans. Discuss. More on Biped Robots here.