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1/8-Scale Tachikoma Delayed Until After August
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
Connected hardware developer Cerevo's 1/8-scale Tachikoma "smart toy" will not be released in June. The company announced that the toys are now expected to ship after August. The delay may be worth the wait though, as Cerevo decided that the toy needed a "Quadrupedal Walk” function instead of just rolling from place to place. The company put up a video on Friday demonstrating how the Tachikoma walks with each leg.
The model recreates the spider-like Tachikoma robots with artificial intelligence that appear in the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex television anime series and Masamune Shirow's original Ghost in the Shell manga. The Tachikoma model is the first widely released Ghost in the Shell product that can electronically move each joint, pod, manipulator, and wheel. The smart toy is equipped with 21 motors, and it can move autonomously depending on its conversations with users. The Tachikoma can move its legs, arms, pod, image sensors, and other parts. Users can also use their smartphones to remotely control the Tachikoma's movements and use commands to influence the model's attitude and behavior.
Sakiko Tamagawa, who voiced the Tachikoma in the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex television and video anime, made 600 voice recordings for the smart toy. In order to make any response possible in theory, as in the original works, developers used voice recognition and voice synthesis engines to combine Tamagawa's recordings. The Tachikoma can recognize speech and make suitable replies in Tamagawa's voice. The smart toy will support both Japanese and English as input languages (via text or speech) and use Japanese as the output language (via text or speech).
In the original manga and anime, the Tachikomas synchronize with each other every night so that they again collectively share the same memories every morning. Similarly, the model Tachikoma connects to a cloud via Wi-Fi to use stored data and recognize objects users show it. The Tachikoma models collect information from different users and transfer the information to the cloud. All 1/8-scale Tachikomas will then share that information.
The Tachikoma costs 157,400 yen (about US$1,417), and Cerevo began accepting preorders on Thursday. The English version of the Cerevo Official Store is offering the smart toy's standard edition for US$1,799.
The Special Edition version will have aluminum parts for the bumpers, gun barrel covers, and other parts. The Special Edition costs 177,400 yen (US$1,597) on the Japanese version of Cerevo's online store and US$1,999 on the English site.
The developers demonstrated the Tachikoma at the Sensors Ignition 2017, AnimeJapan 2017, "Manga VS Real ~ Fukuoka IoT Gannen xcross fm" events earlier this year.
The release is the second part of Cerevo's "S2R (From screen to the real world" project that creates real-world versions of devices depicted in anime, video games, and films. Cerevo released a Psycho-Pass Dominator that can connect with smartphones last year.
The Ghost in the Shell Realize Project also debuted its half-size Tachikoma robot in Tokyo in December.
[Via Otakomu]
