Toyota showed off their new trumpet playing robot. There's very little information about it right now and no cutesy robot name yet. The bipedal Toyota bot stands about 4' tall and can play "When You Wish Upon a Star" on a trumpet. In Japan it seems to be very important to have a robot mascot or sidekick to show off the company's technology. Toyota, not wanting to be outdone in Japanese company pecking order probably explains why they had to have a robot too. More Japanese robot competition hopefully means better robots in our future. Toyota hopes to have a whole robot band to play for the 2005 World Exposition. With many Japanese companies like Honda, Sony, Fujitsu also having robots, one wonders why virtually no American (nor the rest of the world for that matter) companies haven't any robot mascots?

• Walking robot toots horn for Toyota
• Japanese unveil trumpet-playing robot
• And more...