InsideJapan News Network
Friday,
25th
September
2009
In Business In Japan,
In Business In Japan,
Unicycle shown in Japan
Japanese car manufacturer Honda has unveiled its new "personal mobility device" - a unicycle, which it showed in Tokyo.
The battery-powered U3-X unicycle moves in whichever direction the user leans their weight and has been designed with the aim of helping out elderly people in Japan who still want to get around but may struggle to walk.
It can travel as fast as 3.7 miles per hour and uses technology originally developed to be used in the Honda's ASIMO robot.
Honda president Takanobu Ito said that there are currently no plans to put the unicycle on sale and the firm has not put a price on the model.
Japan is facing a rapidly ageing population, with recent government figures revealing that more than 40,000 people in the country are aged 100 and over.
As well as this, another government survey recently found that a record one in four Japanese women are now aged 65 and over.
Written by Graham McPherson.
The battery-powered U3-X unicycle moves in whichever direction the user leans their weight and has been designed with the aim of helping out elderly people in Japan who still want to get around but may struggle to walk.
It can travel as fast as 3.7 miles per hour and uses technology originally developed to be used in the Honda's ASIMO robot.
Honda president Takanobu Ito said that there are currently no plans to put the unicycle on sale and the firm has not put a price on the model.
Japan is facing a rapidly ageing population, with recent government figures revealing that more than 40,000 people in the country are aged 100 and over.
As well as this, another government survey recently found that a record one in four Japanese women are now aged 65 and over.
Written by Graham McPherson.
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