Japanese invention

Saw this article today and just had to share:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,319473,00.html

Japanese Robot Eats Snow, Poops Out Bricks of Ice
Wednesday, January 02, 2008





What's cute, yellow, eats snow and poops out bricks of ice?

Meet Yuki-taro, a Japanese robot built to quickly clear roads after heavy snows.

The cute little guy, about 5 feet long and 2 and a half feet high, simply plows into snowbanks, taking in the white stuff, compressing it and neatly stacking it in two-foot-long bricks on his rear bed.

Created by a consortium of private companies, municipal governments and university researchers, Yuki-taro is equipped with two video cameras in his "eyes" as well as a GPS tracking system to be completely self-guided.

The prototype has already won a design award, and doctored photos of it modified to look like the popular Pokemon character Pikachu have popped up online.