$15000 for a useless robot,
$3,99 for the microphone.

Am I missing something, but how is that a seal?!?! Seals don't have claws coming out of their mouths!!! Would've made more sense to make it an elephant or something!!

I was wondering: Why seal, but after a while I couldnt figure out better animal
Giraffe maybe?

And again heres the reason they cant put out a fire in a nuke station in asia ...all these brains and look what they do with them!

that's one scary seal O_O

#5 I was thinking the same thing! Thats one creapy Seal! Makes me think of Alians

Who really wants to see a robot seal, with a claw hanging out its mouth that shoots hoops???

if they perfected the equation already, why not demo a full basketball court length throw ? and why stop here, lets do football field throw, airport field throw? across pacific ocean throw ?

not to guy that actually set this up....Thank you for not using a real seal to rap around the robot.

#1 Why do you think it's a useless robot.
I visited the research institute it's made in (ITRI) in Taiwan in 2010 . They have a great facility there and it's a promising technology in engineering aspect.
U focused on the wrong place, not the technology but the fake skin.
The point is to locate the mobile target and calculate all the parameters depending on this moving end. And again, it's not useless, at least in terms of control theory.

future Kobe

#10 It's indeed the technology that needs a way of being displayed to the public; choice of wrapping the robot in sealskin is totally wrong, but the public does not like watching a yellow robot arm.

maybe it will be used for good: to clean streets from garbage, by throwing stuff in bins

but eventually will be used for bad: great military technology to throw granades or something

freaky seal ...

#12 Yep, you're totally right.

Used for good or bad? It depends which country made it. If it was US, it would most probably be a military robot to kill innocent people. But if it's Japan or Taiwan as in this case, I don't believe it will be used as a killing machine throwing grenades

#2 obviously it's an alien seal

Scientists can be freaky...

#14 That's funny coming from you. Do you remember what Japan did to the "innocent" Chinese and Korean civilians not so long ago?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest_to_kill_100_people_using_a_sword

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women

Physics (hitting the basket) really isn't that hard if you use something, like say.. A computer?

#17 I know Japan killed thousands of people in Asia. What I meant was the Japan after WW2. Totally neutralized. New generation grows in a pop culture here.