The mascots were selected by the public:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miraitowa_and_Someity#Selectio...

And the mascot robots were designed around this, which isn't clear in the article.

I feel like any article on the Olympics should mention that >80% of the Japanese population was against holding the Olympics at this time [1]. And that Tokyo is now experiencing the highest SARS-CoV-2 daily infection rates it's seen to date. While government officials claim this is unrelated to holding the largest sporting event in the world [2].

[1] https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14351670

[2] https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14408562

> by the public

More precisely, preselected by a committee, who then had elementary schools choose the winner.

There also was wide plans to have elementary school kids go watch the Olympics, it seemed a really big effort went into drilling the event into them.

Thanks for pointing this out, while the bread and circuses are free and on offer, Japan is entering a real state of emergency.

Something I've heard (no great sourcing) is that at the very least Olympic staffers/participants who are getting COVID are for the most part Japan-based staffers and the like, and not people who came from abroad.

My gut feeling is that this recent spike is partly the "lockdown rejection" that we saw across the US last year, in particular stuff like trying to ban alcohol sales in restaurants seemed to have really made a lot of people just kind of give up with the state of emergency recommendations.

And like... there aren't any spectators right? The amount of people at the event is maybe comparable to how many people are at a local supermarket in one day.

Not to defend the gov'ts decision to do the olympics, or any of this thing in general. There will probably not be many real consequences to these people, and people are watching it on TV, but it definitely doesn't feel very "state of emergency" and sets the wrong tone for this moment. It's just that this spike doesn't feel single-factor.

There is likely a certain amount of that:

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14393135

However I would guess people are less likely to exercise self restraint when you're holding a huge unnecessary event. When vaccine availability is unclear and vaccines are inconsistently deployed. And when there's limited financial support.

The spike is most likely delta by my guess. This is the first spike Japan is experiencing after delta has taken hold.

Japan's low vaccination rate means nothing but masks are holding delta at bay.

Are there also [?Toyota] self-driving vans?

I spotted in some photo from the Olympics the vans which look just like the "rugbyball bot" but a full size for passengers.

Edit: Apparently these are busses e-Palette by Toyota, hydrogen fuel-cell powered. Level-4 self-driving capable, but there's a designated driver on-board. Up to 20people, range 150km, speed 19km/h.

Here's what's inside e-Palette bus:

https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/29933371.html

You say hydrogen fuel cell powered but the link you posted says electric-battery.

Indeed, it's electric battery powered, not hydrogen powered. I guess, I got confused reading other links which described promised hydrogen use during the Olympics, including the Olympic flame.

Sorry for the confusion.

I would definitely watch an olympic games full of robots competing with each other.

Each country could submit various robots with varioius specifications - kind of like an olympic games version of robot wars

There were a dota2 bot match events before. Dota2 had a great bots moment like the go, when open ai's dota2 bots beat human players, and showcased different meta strategy of winning the game.

I believe the bot ti was no longer hosted because there seems no strong monetizing channels. Even that a lot of people enjoy them.

[1] https://liquipedia.net/dota2/Bot_TI/2019

This reminds me of the Ghost in the Shell anime (IIRC second season) where Batou, one of the characters mentions he represented Japan on the Paralympics in boxing in the past.

The thing is that he is a full body cyborg ex JSDF soldier with with Ranger training that can literally bend steel bars with bare hands and jump between buildings. And for historical reasons all cyborgs in the near future cyberpunk world of GitS compete on the Paralympics, making them much more interesting than the "normal" Olympic games where only non-augmented humans presumably still compete with each other, with all the limitations of a standard human body.

They did this in the UK in the early 00s it was called Technogames

https://youtu.be/nOB5FtD7nnw

Yeah, something like those soccer robot games seems fun.

The point where you realise Japan is a country that has been LARPing it had robots for 40 years.

Demo of the Field Support Robot (FSR) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDHK2rrH_2Y

It is not a easy project, if you hit an athlete that's a problem. They mention in tests with visually impaired long jump they had to reduce gear noise of the FSR to not interfere with the other team member.

But it could have been done 20+ years ago, there's still no way they are even close to being cost effective. And I predict they will be used sparingly in the field since they will be too buggy. This is not an iterative design, it's a show it off then put it in a cupboard design

If you like this sort of stuff, (and are in USA) you may enjoy being a booster for a local college robot football team:

https://collegeroboticfootball.org/build/

Hail, Hail Robonia, a land I didn't make up

I am actually looking forward to robot competitions, even AI Quake/StarCraft battles.

The closest thing we have right now is radio controlled battlecars banging each other. Not terribly exciting after the first few minutes

There are actual autonomous robot competitions. They don't tend to be as adrenaline-filled as the battlebots, they really don't make good TV, but they're fun. Some have quite low barriers to entry. If you want to dip your toe in you can put together a mini-sumo or maze-running entrant without a ton of time/materials investment.

Basketball throwing robot in the 2020 olympics (for fun): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH9m0L7F-sE This robot is developed by Toyota, apparently.

They're cute, but I'm a bit disappointed that the Field Support Robot doesn't actually retrieve the ball itself, rather it follows the official on the field and waits for a payload.