Korean Robotics Expo Opens in Seoul

The “Robot World 2006” exhibition was held at COEX, Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul at 2:00 p.m. yesterday.

Among 10 people standing next to one another for a tape cutting ceremony was one peculiar figure. A robot more likely to appear in a science fiction film stood next to the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy Chung Sye-kyun.

The robot is “HU BO” made by The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). Observing the aim of the country’s first international robotic exhibition, a robot opened the event.

The android robot, “EveR-1,” made public this May performed the opening ceremony.

Robot World 2006, which continues until October 22 consists of an exhibition, International Robot Industry Show (Iris 2006), a competitive exhibition, the International Robot Contest (IRC 2006) and an academic conference, the Korea Robot Conference (KRC 2006).

However, the world’s first entertaining robot, “Ever2-Muse,” which drew much attention as the highlight of the show, failed to make her first singer debut, due to component glitch.

“Ever2-Muse,” with 165 centimeter-height, 60 kilogram weight and a look of a Korean woman in her 20s, was initially expected to perform lip-synch a ballad song and dance.

The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE) said, “She couldn’t do lip-synch as major component around her neck was damaged while she was being carried,” and added that she will be restored to normal in a couple of days.

“Ever2-Muse,” a following model of “EveR-1,” was made very similar with human in her frame, skin, pupils, facial expression and voice.

The MOCIE promoted Ever2-Muse as capable of doing lip-synching and moving its whole body using its more than 60 joints, nearly two times more than EveR-1’s (35).

Regarding the incident, some pointed out that “Ever2-Muse” had problems because the MOSIE unreasonably forced to show her at the event as opposed to its original schedule for unveiling her at the beginning of next year.

smhong@donga.com sublime@donga.com