Written on November 15, 2008 – 2:19 pm | by Maria Mihale |

I hate robots of any kind and I hate everything that has to do with science-fiction. I can’t see the amusement in seeing such “monsterly” silhouettes, as there’s nothing human in a made-of-iron apparition. Their actions are always commanded, as they can’t feel or react to whatever might happen in their surroundings, so they have, if I may say so, a fake existence.

But people seem to love these creatures. More than that, I’ve even seen individuals who cultivated a very weird passion, if you ask me, for robots. Anyway, what I wanted to write about is FeLiCa, a robot that puts virtual cash at people's disposal, unveiled as the iEXPO 2008 trade show in Japan. Actually, this really isn’t a genuine robot, as it is only designed to stay in one place and to do only one job.

Japan is clearly miles ahead when it comes to electronic payment, there’s no doubt about it, as Japanese can make payments not only via credit cards or cash, but also relying on e-money via cell phones, which has become something like a norm. This is possible thanks to the versatile FeliCa RFID readers which are able to support multiple forms of electronic currency.



NEC has exploited the opportunity to further expand its business interests with this new giant robot that is able to act as a FeliCa payment terminal. It’s something like an ATM for virtual cash. The arm features a reader to check your bank account for a cellular phone. The screen, placed on its chest, is a full touchscreen that allows you to choose e-money application that you need. FeliCa is equipped with face recognition technology, and it would probably be a very good idea to put that right in the face of the android.

The prototype was presented during Tokyo’s iEXPO 2008 trade show and the company hopes it will sell to establishments that need a reader for FeliCA-enabled cell phones. The android payment terminals are available for immediate consumption, so NEC can supply machines as they’re ordered upon short notice. As long as they’re not frightened of the “monster”, users who choose to make payments this way will soon face the NEC bot, somewhere in Japan, although it’s not clear whether anyone has already expressed intentions of buying such a thing.

(Source: coolest-gadgets.com)