From the Asahi Shimbun, more perspective on Google’s recent interest in Japanese robotics:

“While the future plans of Google are not totally clear, the company apparently wants to incorporate all future-generation robotic technology. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has written about a future in which each U.S. household owns several multifunction robots.

Norio Murakami, who once served as the head of the Japanese arm of Google, predicts that Google is seeking to develop computers that can serve as butlers in the home.

Those robots would find answers over the Internet to questions raised by its master as well as perform such tasks as cleaning and cooking.

In 2011, Google proposed technology that it called cloud robotics. Under that concept, robots in households and factories would be connected to a gigantic brain in cyberspace. That would mean nothing short of Google controlling the brains used in all robots.

The idea clashes somewhat with mainstream thinking in Japan, where robots have primarily been considered as a manufacturing tool.

Changing demographics also place greater expectations on robots.

Rodney Brooks, a co-founder of U.S.-based iRobot Corp., noted that many advanced nations face a growing population of senior citizens and a declining number of young people. He said robots hold the key for resolving manpower problems such as how to inspect and repair social infrastructure, especially in Japan.”