World's Leading Humanoid Robot meets the European Parliament's Leading Liberal

12.00.00am GMT Wed 26th Jan 2005

Graham Watson MEP meets ASIMO in the European Parliament

Graham Watson, the South West and Gibraltar Liberal Democrat MEP and Leader of the European Liberals in the European Parliament entered the world of science fiction this week when he met ASIMO. ASIMO is the most advanced humanoid robot in the world, developed by Honda engineers as part of ongoing research into cognitive mobility; part funded by the European Union and built in Japan.

ASIMO stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility and is the latest generation of robot to imitate human predictive movement. ASIMO waved to onlookers and demonstrated considerable versatility of movement.

Graham Watson said after meeting ASIMO;

"The global robotics industry is currently estimated to be worth $8bn and forecast to grow to $17bn by 2010. I am pleased that the European Union is taking an interest in this cutting edge technology by helping to fund projects such as ASIMO. The potential benefits to society of humanoid robots are enormous, for example they will give us the ability to use machines for some dangerous or monotonous tasks in the future. And by half way through this century the possibility of having a robot in every home may be realised."

He carried on to say;

"I am particularly proud that the Technical Engineer for ASIMO came from Honda Engineering within my constituency in Swindon. Honda is to be congratulated in the groundbreaking work the company is carrying out. I was most pleased to meet ASIMO and shake its hand."

ENDS

Notes for Editors:

1. Please find attached a photo to use with the above Press Release.

2. For more information on ASIMO visit http://world.honda.com/ASIMO/