On October 31st, Honda held a party celebrating ASIMO’s 9th birthday at the Honda Welcome Plaza in Tokyo.  I suppose the HD footage of ASIMO running that K.Moriyama posted the other day is from this event.  The original version of ASIMO was replaced with a slightly taller and stream-lined version in 2005.  With the recent announcement that Honda is developing a new hydraulic hand for ASIMO, one wonders if 2010 will see a third version of the robot unveiled?  It seems like forever since we saw ASIMO do any new tricks, and if Honda wants to remain competitive with robots like Toyota’s Partner Robot that can run faster than him (as well as play instruments like the violin), they may want to up the ante once more with a new model.

[source: Honda(JP)]
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Image credit: DayLife

Related posts:

1. Honda Reveals Undocumented ASIMO Prototype (P4)
2. ASIMO Interaction Study at Ars Electronica 2010
3. ASIMO Teaching Kids To Respect The Environment
4. ASIMO visits Canada!