loving Japanese are tinkering with screwdrivers and motors instead of heading to the beach or hot springs during this nation's “Golden Week” holidays. Among the robots on display Monday at Vstone Robot Center in the bustling Akihabara electronics district was the 1.3-meter (4.3 feet)-tall “Alcnon?” - a play on the Japanese for “Can it walk?” The machine shuffled about, controlled by a remote handheld device, and made jerky punches with its claw-like plastic arms. The shop, run by Japanese robot-maker Vstone Co., on the fourth floor of a building amid the district's maze of narrow alleys and gadget stores, also offers maintenance advice for robot-owners and runs robot-building workshops for children. Tokyo's only major store devoted to robots, it sells robots of all sizes and shapes, including not only Vstone products but also the tiny scuttling Robo-Q from Tomy Co. and the Pleo animatronic dinosaur toy from the now bankrupt Ugobe Inc. of the US “Robots highlight Japan's technological finesse,” said Naoto Osada, a 30-year old teacher from Tokyo, who had just bought a Robo-Q. Vstone has been busy developing build-your-robot kits for children and high schoolers and estimates that some 10,000 people now own its robots in Japan.
