The Sun /Sunday, June 8, 2014


WORLD/HEALTH NEWS


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WIRE Page 7


Emotional robot set for sale in Japan


 TOKYO (AP)I A coo-
ing, gesturing humanoid
on wheels that can
decipher emotions has
been unveiled in Japan
by billionaire Masayoshi
Son who says robots
should be tender and
make people smile.
 Son's mobile phone
company Softbank said
Thursday that the robot
it has dubbed Pepper will
go on sale in Japan in
February for 198,000 yen
($1,900). Overseas sales
plans are under consid-
eration but undecided.
 The machine, which
has no legs, but has gen-
tly gesticulating hands
appeared on a stage in
a Tokyo suburb, cooing
and humming. It dra-
matically touched hands
with Son in a Genesis or
"E.T." moment.
 Son, who told the
crowd that his longtime
dream was to go into the
personal robot business,
said Pepper has been
programmed to read
the emotions of people
around it by recognizing
expressions and voice
tones.
 "Our aim is to develop
affectionate robots that
can make people smile,"
he said.
 The 121 centimeter (48
inch) tall, 28 kilogram
(62 pound) white Pepper,
which has no hair but
two large doll-like eyes
and a flat-panel display
stuck on its chest, was
developed jointly with


 AP PHOTO
In this undated photo
released by Softbank Corp.,
the Japanese mobile carrier's
Pepper humanoid-on-wheels
is shown.
Aldebaran Robotics,
which produces autono-
mous humanoid robots.
 Besides featuring the
latest voice recognition,
Pepper is loaded with
more than a dozen
sensors, including
two touch sensors in
its hands, three touch
sensors on its head, and
six laser sensors and
three bumper sensors in
its base.


 It also has two cameras
and four microphones
on its head and has Wi-Fi
and Ethernet networking
capabilities.
 But a demonstration
Friday at a Softbank
retailer in Tokyo high-
lighted the robot's
shortcomings as much as
its charm.
 Voice recognition
takes a while to kick in,
when its eyes light up in
a listening mode after
the robot stops talking,
making for less than
spontaneous dialogue,
similar to the frustration
one experiences talking
with iPhone's Siri.
 Pepper was obviously
more at ease going into
its own chatter, such
as asking "Do you do
Twitter?" or "Is this
the first time you ever
spoke to a robot?" But it
wouldn't really wait for
an answer, rattling on to
the next topic.
 Sometimes the ro-
bot which, up close,
bears a resemblance to
C-3PO in "Star Wars,"
especially in its clueless
look failed to catch
a speaker's words and
would say: "I could not
hear you. Could you say
that again?"
 When a person
shouted in a big voice
to test out how well it
read emotions, it didn't
do much except to say:
"You look like an honest
person."
 In Thursday's


demonstration, Pepper
sang, "I want to be
loved," and it did more
singing and gesturing
with its hands Friday.
 But all its song-and-
dance acts seemed
to prove was that the
machine needs to learn a
lot more tricks to impress
robot-savvy Japanese.
The Softbank shop barely
drew a crowd besides a
pack of reporters with
their cameras.
 Cuddly robots are not
new in Japan, a nation
dominated by "kawaii,"
or cute culture, but no
companion robot has
emerged as a major
market success yet.
 Japanese electronics
and entertainment
company Sony Corp.
discontinued the Aibo
pet-dog robot in 2006,
despite an outcry from
its fans. At that time,
Sony had developed a
child-shaped entertain-
ment robot similar to
Pepper but much small-
er, capable of dances
and other charming
moves, which never
became a commercial
product.
 Honda Motor Co. has
developed the walking,
talking Asimo robot, but
that is too sophisticat-
ed and expensive for
home use, and appears
in Honda showrooms
and gala events only.
Even then, it is prone to
glitches because of its
complexity.


WORLD
 Official: 34 dead
 in east Congo
 after attack
 KINSHASA, Congo (AP)
- Armed fighters attacked
a town in eastern Congo
late at night, massacring at
least 34 people including
women and children who
were at a local church,
officials said Saturday.
 Provincial interior min-
ister Jean Julien Miruho
said that the violence
in Mutarule late Friday
also left at least 27 others
wounded.
 Miruho said the identity
of the assailants was un-
known, though he believed
the violence stemmed
from livestock disputes in
the area, about 40 miles
from Bukavu.
 "We cannot say exactly
who these attackers were,
but we will put together
a commission of inquiry
that will go to the site
Sunday," Miruho told The
Associated Press. "It is clear
that this attack was linked
to the theft of cattle."
 Survivors blamed a
rebel group from Burundi
known as the FNL for the
attack, though the claim
couldn't immediately be
verified.
 Eastern Congo is home
to a myriad of armed
groups and militias,
many vying for control of
the region's vast mineral
resources. Many of the
rebel groups sowing unrest
there originate in other
countries in the region, in-
cluding Burundi, Uganda
and Rwanda.


 Bombs kill 52 as
 gunmen storm
 university in Iraq
 BAGHDAD (AP)I A
series of car bombs
exploded across Iraq's
capital Saturday night,
killing at least 52 people
in a day of violence that
saw militants storm a
university in the country's
restive Anbar province
and take dozens hostage,
authorities said.
 The attacks in Baghdad
largely focused on Shiite
neighborhoods, under-
scoring the sectarian
violence now striking at
Iraq years after a similar
wave nearly tore the
country apart following
the U.S.-led invasion that
toppled Saddam Hussein.
Now with U.S. troops
gone, Iraq found itself
fighting on fronts across
the country, as separate
clashes in a northern city
killed 21 police officers and
38 militants, officials said.
 The first Baghdad attack
took place Saturday night
in the capital's western
Baiyaa district, killing nine
people and wounding 22,
police said. Later on, sev-
en car bombs in different
parts of Baghdad killed
at least 41 people and
wounded 62, police said. A
roadside bomb in western
Baghdad also killed two
people and wounded six,
police said. All the attacks
happened in a one-hour
period and largely tar-
geted commercial streets
in Shiite neighborhoods,
authorities said.


 LOS ANGELES (La
Times) -Readers
perennially on the
lookout for the next big
thing in weight loss have
heard of brown fat: those
mitochondria-rich fat
cells found plentifully
between the shoulder
blades of mice, babies
and young, thin people.
The bodies of people and
animals with large stores
of brown fat rev higher,
burn more calories and
tend not to become
obese.
 In recent years,
researchers suggested
that increasing brown fat
stores or promoting
the conversion of white
fat to the brown kind
- could help prevent
or even reverse obesity.
Exposure to cold seemed
to be one way to brown
up white fat, but scien-
tists acknowledged they
didn't understand why
that happened.
 Now, a team of scien-
tists led by a University of
California, San Francisco
immunologist has found
that the immune system
could hold the key to
turning white fat, if not
brown exactly, at least
beige. The immune
process they describe ap-
pears to be set in motion
by cold, and it works on
white fat cells that are
dispersed around the
upper back, the chest
and the viscera, above
the kidneys. But gaining
a better understanding
of how that happens may
lead to easier or more ef-
fective ways of boosting
our bodies' fat-burning
power than, say, plunging
ourselves into cold water
on a regular basis.
 UC San Francisco's
Dr. Ajay Chawla, who
conducted much of the
early research on cold


exposure and brown fat,
led a team hoping to
peer into the mysterious
process by which white
fat cells which tends to
beget more of themselves
- instead take on more of
the dark cellular furnaces
and burn more fuel to
sustain themselves.
 The article was pub-
lished this week in the
journal Cell.
 In mice, Chawla's team
showed that when white
fat was exposed to cold,
the immune system sent
out the signaling pro-
teins interleukin 4 and
interleukin 13, which in
turn drew macrophages
(immune cells that en-
gulf and digest invading
pathogens) into white
fat. Inside the white
fat cells, macrophages
produced an organic
compound called cate-
cholamines, which made
the white cells beige and
ramped up their energy
needs.
 When the researchers
increased the amount
of interleukin 4 in mice,
they developed more
beige fat mass, and
lost weight. When they
bred mice incapable of
producing interleukin 4
or interleukin 13, they
found that the mice had
less beige fat, burned
fewer calories and could
not maintain a normal
body temperature when
exposed to the cold.
 The study offers
scientists hunting for a
diabetes cure a whole
new approach one
that targets the immune
system rather than the
brain or gut, where
appetite and satiety
signals are produced.
And it suggests that the
body's energy-consump-
tion rates are not strictly
under the control of the


brain or endocrine (hor-
mone) system, but can
be altered by tweaking
the immune system.
 Chawla and many
other researchers now
believe that the poten-
tial to exploit brown
fat for weight loss is
significant.
 "If you could increase
energy expenditure by
even a few percent, over
a period of a year or two
years you would make a


big difference," he said.
 At the same time,
Chawla cautions that
"beiging" fat for weight
loss may not work for
everyone. Individuals
will probably vary in
how large their brown
fat reserves are and how
much "beige" fat they
can generate. Women
appear to have less
brown fat than men,
and humans have less
as we age.


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Body fat: Beige is the new brown


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