Something about robots running around Osaka Station

[Mulboyne]

Kippo: New Year marks beginning of major changes around Osaka Station
The year 2005 is likely to be called a year that will determine whether Osaka will be able to move forward to take large steps toward becoming an international 'metropolitan area with a sense of existence.' It is because major changes will start in an area stretching from JR Osaka Station, the biggest railway terminal in Western Japan including its freight yard to the vicinity of Nishi Umeda...After the central government has designated it as one of areas necessary to be renewed urgently under the Special Measures for Urban Renewal Law, the International Concept Competition Committee of Osaka Station-Northern Umeda area was set up and then an international competition was carried out.
Attention is focused on the 'knowledge capital' that will be the hub of intelligent activities for the creation of new industries and businesses with the 'research and development base for next generation robots' expected to assume a central part. A group of people, including Prof. Minoru Asada of the graduate school of Engineering , Osaka University's , are crafting concrete plans. Asada, one of the founders of the international Humanoid Soccer League Championship RoboCup that has been held since 1997, has been calling in public lectures for the proposed base to be 'open-type research facilities where all kinds of technologies on robotics will be evolved and that the facilities will conduct experiments and make proposals on symbiosis of robots and humans and their living space of tomorrow.' If such plans are crystallized, 'futuristic metropolitan space' completely different from such developed areas as Tokyo's Shiodome district will be realized in the heart of Osaka where robots will walk, run and go along shopping with humans. Asada said if Osaka creates the 'sole facilities and space' people will come from the rest of the world.

[Taro Toporific]

... move forward to take large steps toward becoming an international 'metropolitan area with a sense of existence.'....and make proposals on symbiosis of robots and humans and their living space of tomorrow.'....

And who says ya can't get good drugs in Japan?