Japan’s leading security company, Secom Co. presented yesterday a robot that can run as fast as humans (up to 10Km/hr) and blow white smoke at them to scare them away.

The Secom Robot X is designed for use at spacious places such as airports and factories and will be leased approximately US$3000 per month. The four-wheeled robot is about one meter long and high and weighs 120 kilograms.

More pictures.

Nosing about the Secom company, I found they have developped a series of interesting applications:

Together with National Bicycle –an affiliate of Matsushita Electric Industrial, they will launch on the market next year an electric bicycle equipped with GPS and linked to security services supplied by SECOM.
The user can track the bicycle in real time by connecting to a website or by calling a SECOM operator, and he can also ask for a SECOM security agent to rush to the spot if needed.

The system can also be bought separately and installed on earlier models of electric bicycles manufactured by National Bicycle.

Then there’s My Spoon, the meal assistance robot, for people who need help from a caregiver in order to be able to eat.

The spoon can be operated in either manual, semi-automatic or automatic mode via a joystick.