And the mascot robots were designed around this, which isn't clear in the article.
I feel like any article on the Olympics should mention that >80% of the Japanese population was against holding the Olympics at this time [1]. And that Tokyo is now experiencing the highest SARS-CoV-2 daily infection rates it's seen to date. While government officials claim this is unrelated to holding the largest sporting event in the world [2].
Something I've heard (no great sourcing) is that at the very least Olympic staffers/participants who are getting COVID are for the most part Japan-based staffers and the like, and not people who came from abroad.
My gut feeling is that this recent spike is partly the "lockdown rejection" that we saw across the US last year, in particular stuff like trying to ban alcohol sales in restaurants seemed to have really made a lot of people just kind of give up with the state of emergency recommendations.
And like... there aren't any spectators right? The amount of people at the event is maybe comparable to how many people are at a local supermarket in one day.
Not to defend the gov'ts decision to do the olympics, or any of this thing in general. There will probably not be many real consequences to these people, and people are watching it on TV, but it definitely doesn't feel very "state of emergency" and sets the wrong tone for this moment. It's just that this spike doesn't feel single-factor.
However I would guess people are less likely to exercise self restraint when you're holding a huge unnecessary event. When vaccine availability is unclear and vaccines are inconsistently deployed. And when there's limited financial support.
I spotted in some photo from the Olympics the vans which look just like the "rugbyball bot" but a full size for passengers.
Edit: Apparently these are busses e-Palette by Toyota, hydrogen fuel-cell powered. Level-4 self-driving capable, but there's a designated driver on-board. Up to 20people, range 150km, speed 19km/h.
Indeed, it's electric battery powered, not hydrogen powered. I guess, I got confused reading other links which described promised hydrogen use during the Olympics, including the Olympic flame.
There were a dota2 bot match events before. Dota2 had a great bots moment like the go, when open ai's dota2 bots beat human players, and showcased different meta strategy of winning the game.
I believe the bot ti was no longer hosted because there seems no strong monetizing channels. Even that a lot of people enjoy them.
This reminds me of the Ghost in the Shell anime (IIRC second season) where Batou, one of the characters mentions he represented Japan on the Paralympics in boxing in the past.
The thing is that he is a full body cyborg ex JSDF soldier with with Ranger training that can literally bend steel bars with bare hands and jump between buildings. And for historical reasons all cyborgs in the near future cyberpunk world of GitS compete on the Paralympics, making them much more interesting than the "normal" Olympic games where only non-augmented humans presumably still compete with each other, with all the limitations of a standard human body.
It is not a easy project, if you hit an athlete that's a problem. They mention in tests with visually impaired long jump they had to reduce gear noise of the FSR to not interfere with the other team member.
But it could have been done 20+ years ago, there's still no way they are even close to being cost effective. And I predict they will be used sparingly in the field since they will be too buggy. This is not an iterative design, it's a show it off then put it in a cupboard design
There are actual autonomous robot competitions. They don't tend to be as adrenaline-filled as the battlebots, they really don't make good TV, but they're fun. Some have quite low barriers to entry. If you want to dip your toe in you can put together a mini-sumo or maze-running entrant without a ton of time/materials investment.
They're cute, but I'm a bit disappointed that the Field Support Robot doesn't actually retrieve the ball itself, rather it follows the official on the field and waits for a payload.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miraitowa_and_Someity#Selectio...
And the mascot robots were designed around this, which isn't clear in the article.
I feel like any article on the Olympics should mention that >80% of the Japanese population was against holding the Olympics at this time [1]. And that Tokyo is now experiencing the highest SARS-CoV-2 daily infection rates it's seen to date. While government officials claim this is unrelated to holding the largest sporting event in the world [2].
[1] https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14351670
[2] https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14408562