This not-so-little ladybug robot is designed to automatically clean restrooms located next to Japanese rest areas. Inside each “Lady Bird” model are water tanks, brushes, and cleaning supplies, while microphones in her antenna can listen to patrons and respond with basic information about traffic conditions or weather.
There is nothing horribly frightening about this robot at all, because as you can see from the picture, it is smiling. Smiling things are not terrible whirring automatons about to kick in your stall. They are friends.
Each machine costs a relatively inexpensive $3k or so apiece and will be showing up in Japanese rest stops by March of next year.
Ladybug robot cleans restrooms [Pink Tentacle]
They should put a smile on the iRobot tactical robots.
If I remember the time I spent in the future properly, every T-800 I encountered had a smile on its face.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Terminator1001.jpg
Um…Not so inexpensive. The PT article says they are $30,000, not $3,000 each…