By Roland Piquepaille
There is a new cop patrolling the streets of Hong Kong and teaching children how to prevent crime. But it's a robot, named Robotcop III, designed and built in Hong Kong, tells us Channel Newsasia. Robotcop III can walk, dance, move in any direction, display videos and answer questions asked in Cantonese and English. The previous versions of Robotcops, introduced in 1988 and 1995, were imported from the U.S. and taught 800,000 school children how to fight crime. The promoters of Robotcop III hope it will do even better.Here is a photo of Robotcop III patrolling on Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) campus (Credit: HKUST)
You can find a much larger version here (1960 x 3008 pixels, 3.05 MB).
After two predecessors from the U.S., Robotcop The Third is "born-and-bred", so to speak, in Hong Kong.
It might cost around HK$300,000 (US$38,500) to develop and build, but the service it provides the Hong Kong crime prevention drive is priceless.
Like its predecessors, its main role is to spread anti-theft and anti-triad messages.
The Hong Kong government wanted to have a locally-built robot to be more cost-effective and to promote its technology.
Professor David Young, Director of the Applied Technology Centre at HKUST, said: "We had a hope, that with this Robotcop, we could show that Hong Kong's technology is world class. That we can also produce a world class robot.
If you want to see other photographs of Robotcop III when it was unveiled March 2, you can visit this page set up by the Hong Kong government.
Sources: Melissa Hyak, Channel Newsasia, March 10, 2004; and various websites in Hong Kong
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