I work at a factory in Japan that makes car parts. So there is a room full of actual, no-foolin, robots about 200 feet from me right now. Industrially speaking, "robot" is a very specific term, as the ISO definition indicates. The big arm that moves around a part and spot welds it is a called a "robot". It would be called a "robot" by a lawyer. There is another machine that you put a block of steel in, and an electrically charged wire cuts the steel in a pre-programmed shape. We do not call this thing a robot, even though it also gets its commands from a computer and does work for us. It just has a different name. For non-industry people, though, I think it would be a robot.
So, working from there we find in wikipedia that "work" does not include the transference of "heat" energy since there is no macroscopically measurable force, only microscopic forces occurring in atomic collisions.
So as far as being a robot, the microwave oven is right out!
Many of the robots in my factory weld, which is not much different than cooking steel.
I think the West has largely given up on making humanoid robots, but the Japanese are still gangbusters. They want to make robots to help the elderly. These would be the robots that we've been dreaming about all these years. Many of them can walk (to use stairs), get stuff from the fridge, respond to voice commands, navigate their environment, and recognize their owners. Not only that, they need to be cute so that old people will want to use them (And Japanese people just love cute stuff).
Toshiba has some
stuff in the works. Doesn't get much cuter than this.
Looks like Sony has disconinued the
Aibo robot dog, though. It was trained to follow a pink ball. I read that one owner had a red wall that had faded to pink in the sun, and his Aibo would sit and stare at it all day.
Misc Japanese robots
here. Scroll down for the article on the "Uncanny Valley." Then keep scrolling to the article called "Hello Sailor."
These are some welding robots from the factory where I work. After the above link, this may be dissapointing, but I couldn't resist.
