Sex Doll Dentistry

So... what are your turn-ons?

I'm unsure if I am frightened or just a little bit turned on.

But... if it helps the profession, then I am all for it.
Take a look at the photo to the left. That dentist is practicing his skills on a sex doll. Yup. Open wide and say 'ohhh'.

Originally created for the horny young male who likes ejaculating into plastic, this sex doll is being used to train dentists at Showa University in Japan.

Showa Hanako 2 is a robot dental patient with all of the right curves and smoothness that will make you want to ravish her all over - but especially her mouth.

This is a robot that can actually chat with the dentist in training. Manufactured by robot maker Tmsuk Co., Ltd., externally it wears the 'skin' of the Dutch Wife-style love doll from Orient Industry, a Tokyo-based sex doll manufacturer.

Just a word of advice... do not click on this link at work: DOLL. Is anyone hiring?

My favourite is Ange.

Anyhow... this Hanako 2 Showa will be sold by the dental supply company The Yoshida Dental Manufacturing Co. Ltd. so that students everywhere can practice dentistry on a hot-looking Japanese female sex doll without the possibility of killing anyone. Dentistry and death - it's happened. Probably.

By it's very name, Showa Hanako 2, you can tell that there was a Showa Hanako 1 prior to this... and we''ll look at some of the improvements here.

Showa Hanako 2 is a way more realistic, functional and easier to abuse use. Thanks to the new life-like improvements in the sex doll, Showa Hanako 2 has a wonderfully soft silicone skin (it used to be PVC aka Polyvinyl chloride a thermoplastic polymer) and realistic mouth lining. Its tongue and arms have two degrees of movement (the robot actually has 10-points or articulation for the entire doll/patient) so it has a more natural appearance and movement, and can actually shake its head and choke.

The head used to be run on pneumatics (air-blown), but now utilizes small motors for more fluid movements.

The choking sounds like fun. Actually, the choking or gagging reflex is put in there just in case a clumsy dentist places an instrument too far down the throat. Hey... it all makes sense when you get your mind out of the gutter.

Hell, Showa Hanako 2 can also sneeze... that's also a good training tool, because a dentist should be able to retract all of his instruments from the patients mouth so they don't hurt themselves during the sneeze. Wow... this really is a great training tool.

Says a representative of Yoshida Dental Manufacturing: "We've been in contact with Orient Industry for over a decade, since before we produced Hanako 1. Even then, we thought we'd need professionals to help with the molding. If you don't try to make a robot's face look realistic, it doesn't have the same effect on users psychologically. How doctors and students actually feel in the presence of a patient is a really big factor. It makes quite a difference if students can train while experiencing the same kind of tension they'd feel about a human patient - thinking, for example, 'I'm really going to make this treatment work,' or 'Even the smallest mistake would be unforgivable.' We think it's okay for people to be tense while training, and to make mistakes, because, well, this is a robot."

Like its predecessor, having a female robot dental patient was important for the training of dentists mainly because it was felt that it was important that the would-be dentists get some practice in now in how not to accidentally touch a patient's breasts.

Yes... that was really one of the reasons given. However, I don't believe the Showa Hanako 2 has the ability to slap the dentist in training should one cop a feel. Maybe that can be added into Showa Hanako 3... though there are probably a few dentists out there who might enjoy being slapped.

Anyhow... I haven't been able to find a photo of Showa Hanako 2's breasts, but she sure does have the prettiest mouth I've ever come across. Ba-dum-bum.

What instrument would best work in here?

Says the Yoshida Dental Manufacturing representative: "We considered the motions of the tongue and mouth lining separately. To prevent water getting into the machinery and causing problems, we wanted to form those parts in one piece if possible. But the molding technology for doing that wasn't available to us. Orient Industry had that technology, and it helped us a lot."

Just like a human patient, robot sex girl Showa Hanako 2 can blink its eyes, roll its eyes, sneeze, shake its head, cough, move its tongue, and it actually gets tired of holding its mouth open. And here's the cool part--it can talk.

Thanks to its new conversation programming using speech recognition software from RayTron Inc. of Osaka, Japan, Showa Hanako 2 can chat with the dentist about whether or not she's done any fishing lately, or more realistically can state how she is feeling and what's bothering that purty little mouth of hers - it's proabably good practice for the dentist-in-training to try and understand just what the patient is saying while having a mouthful of drills and scrapers in her maw.

(Why can't I find out who the hell is actually saying this?!) The Yoshida representative continues: "People choke if you put your fingers down their throat, which is called the gag reflex. We've reproduced that reflex. Students are taught about this from textbooks, but it's hard to teach them what actually happens. So we've built a choking capability into this robot.

"Even when we first produced Showa Hanako, we were asked to sell it in four or five countries. But the problem was how we could keep offering maintenance, which is Tmsuk's job, if the robot came into widespread use. However, we thought that Showa Hanako should be sold through coordination among the government and organizations involved, as a technology from Japan, rather than from an individual university or company. Regarding actual feature development, speech recognition has gone very well, even better than we expected. We've found that the robot can recognize a variety of words, and accumulate a vocabulary. This will be really helpful when we do data mining from medical histories and patient databases. So we have the feeling that a new industry will be born in the medical field."

Japan - It's A Wonderful Rife applauds the creation of this doll. Anything that can turn on a dentist while allowing him to get better at a job is a-okay in my book. I should write a book.

Somewhere waiting for my delivery from Orient Industry,
Andrew Joseph

Robot To Complete Triathalon

This story was making the news today... (Friday):

A wee, itty bitty Japanese robot built Takahashi Tomotaka (surname first) of electronics giant Panasonic is going to tackle Hawaii's Ironman Triathalon. And it's only 6.7 inches (~17 centimeters) tall, proving once and for all that size isn't everything.

It shouldn't be too difficult for the robot named Evolta-san (Mister Evolta), as it has previously: 

• climbed the sheer walls of the Grand Canyon in the U.S. back on May 24, 2008 climbing up over 1,700 feet of rope in less than seven hours. You can watch a video of that HERE; 
• driven around the LeMans racetrack for the equivalent 24 hours. Video HERE;
• and walked from Tokyo to Kyoto in Japan - a distance of 500 kilometers. Video HERE.

Wearing three different bodies and three rechargeable batteries, Evolta will swim 2.4-mile (3.86 km), bicycle 112 miles (180.25 km) and then run 26.2 miles (49.195 km), which is a full marathon. 

Just don't except the little guy to actually compete against humans and beat them.

"This is very tough even for a sportsman, but I think it is worth a challenge," explains Takahashi. "The robot will encounter a lot of hardships on its way, but I hope it will overcome them all and succeed in the end."

Evolta-san will have to swim, run and bike for a total of approximately 140.6 miles (230 km). The time given to complete the task is one whole week or 168 hours, which is ten times longer than it would take an average  sportsman.

"Evolta's height is just one-tenth of a grown man, so we figured out that it would take it 10 times more time," explains Takahashi.

As mentioned, Evolta -san has three bodies. 

• One is mounted upon a small bicycle with Evolta-san in a round hoop with a supporting rear wheel. 
• A second body--for swimming--is mounted on a curved, fin-like blade with its arms stretched out.
• The third is the basic humanoid shape for running.

The swimming body was a tricky one for Evolta-san's creator. 

"I had to think of the ways to make it (Evolta) water-proof and protect it from mold as much as possible," recalls Takahashi.

Takahashi Tomotaka and his Evolta-san robot.

Considered a fool-proof marketing ploy by Panasonic, the same type of batteries worn by Evolta will go on sale in Japan on October 21, 2011--able to be recharged a remarkable 1,800 times in its recharger pad. 

These Evolta batteries last longer than any of Panasonic’s Alkaline predecessors and in most cases Oxyride

too. This neat battery has caught the attention of the Guinness World Records (formerly known as the Guinness Book of World Records until 2000) , which has officially recognized Evolta as the "Longest Lasting AA Alkaline Battery in a wide range of devices." Guinness apparently determined Evolta-san's achievement based on third-party verified data obtained from discharge testing Panasonic conducted in accordance with the guidelines set by American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

I'm just going to say that Guinness World Records has a lot of stupid records in its archives - a way more so than when I first bought a copy back in 1974. I was always more interested in human sizes - mostly because the only robots I knew then as a 10-year-old were more interested in destroying humans - except for Astro Boy, Robbie the Robot and B-9, that robot from the Lost In Space television show.

Evolta-san's triathlon challenge will take place in Hawaii on October 24, 2011 and will continue non-stop for seven days and nights. 

The actual Ironman World Championship takes place on October 8, 2011 in Kona, Hawaii. More information can be found at www.ironman.com.

Robots Provide Comfort In Fukushima

With news that robot sales have risen 41 per cent in North America for the first half of 2011 comes news that Japan is using robots to help comfort people.

With many elderly (and young) people greatly affected by the triple disasters of earthquake, tsunami and near-nuclear meltdown beginning on March 11, 2011, folks have been seeking comfort wherever they can find it. 

For some elderly survivors, this comfort comes from a pair of robotic seals called Paro.

Situated 27 kilometres south of the Dai Ichi (Big One) nuclear facility in Fukushima-ken (Fukushima Prefecture) upon a hill hit by the tsunami, the Suisyoen retirement home is doing what it can to lend support.

Thanks to fears of nuclear radiation in the air spewed by the damaged nuclear facility, Suisyoen was evacuated for two months.

About a week after the people returned, Daiwa House's robotic division offered a pair of the Paro robots for a two-year period.

Each seal-shaped robot is coated with an anti-bacterial fur, and have been dubbed Love and Peace (obviously translated from Japanese!). The robot harp seals can blink their eyes and respond to touch and sound. And... the cute little bugger apparently develops a personality over time depending on how people interact with it... I mean him or her.

The robots are treated by the patrons as pets. Research has shown that pets offer amazing affects for those suffering from shock or depression.

While it is true that many retirement facilities in Japan and around the world utilize real animals to provide therapy for its residents, Suisyoen's facility general manager Katoono Taku (surname first) notes that using these therapeutic robots helps lower many of the barriers normally associated with live animals.

Japan - It's A Wonderful Rife assumes that to mean, no allergies, fears, cleaning, feeding, and of course, no pooping.      

AIST is the company that originally created Paro - but tried to do so using thej more familiar pets: dogs and cats. However, it was quickly determined that that while cute, people quickly began comparing the robotic cats and dogs with the real animals. 

By using a baby seal pup, it' is still cute and adorable and is familiar enough... but it is also unfamiliar enough to people who don't know what a real seal is supposed to behave like... so people just enjoy the robot for what it is... cute and fluffy. 

While real seals are nocturnal, the Paro seals wake in the morning and get sleepy in the evening. The Paro robots possess five senses which it uses to determine touch, light, sound, temperature and posture.

So... how does the robot act? Apparently Paro wakes up dazed (just like a real person... I'm unsure if a baby harp seal wakes up dazed, however), it enjoys cuddling, but will complain if it's not getting enough attention or food. 

The part of me that expects this to go horribly wrong assumes that eventually the baby harp seal wants to eat the raw flesh of Canadian harp seal clubbers, but no... Paro just needs a jolt of battery power. 

The seal - like any pet, will eventually learn whatever name you give it, as well as simple audio cues like greetings and praise. And, if that is to cool to creep you out, perhaps this will: Paro doesn't like you touching him/her in a certain way, and will wriggle away from you. It will nuzzle your hand, snuggle up when it is content and happy, and will bark like a seal if he's unhappy. 

It blinks his large eyes for attention, and meeps or mews when being ignored. Basically... this is a cool robot!

Should you wish to purchase a Paro Robot Seal Healing Pet...  I saw a price tag of US/Cdn $5,000.

For the folks at the Suisyoen, no price is to high.

Files by Andrew Joseph

Communication Breakdown

Here are 10 things everyone should know about Japan:

1. Everyone under 18 has black hair - see class trip to Nikko at right.

2. If there is any space available, they put a rice field or a 7-11 or a pachinko parlour on it.

3. Japan is not infested with evil giant talking robots. Some of them are quite small small and make good students.

4. Japanese condoms will not fit the average Canadian. Thank goodness.

5. They save money by not cooking their food.

6. They think rotting soy beans should be eaten - see Natto.

7. Everyone knows the theme song for the kid's television show Ultraman-7. Why are they singing part of it in English?!

8. They like to smoke and drink and sing and party to the wee hours of the evening.

9. Almost everyone has a radar detector, but can't speed because of the constant gridlock in the big cities or the goat paths cum roads in the small towns.

10. They all speak better English after half a bottle of sake.

Somewhere singing about robotic superheroes,
Andrew Joseph
Today's title is by Led Zeppelin: ROCK ON!