Many Chinese innovations are irrelevant, critics say. (Photo : Getty Images)
China appears to be under the impression that robots are the future, whereas these innovations--while many--are becoming more and more irrelevant by the day.
Robotics is a field which should present enormous possibilities for a country that holds so much advancement potential like China.
Unfortunately, the country's "innovators" appear to be getting more trivial in their inventions, bringing some to question whether or not the robots really are the future of the world.
False Boom
Robotics in China boomed especially when Foxconn, one of the top suppliers of some of the biggest Western tech companies, decided to lay off thousands of humans and replace them with mechanical arms.
According to the South China Morning Post, the country is currently ranked 29th among 141 countries in terms of the World Intellectual Property Organisation's Global Innovation Index 2015.
Since then, the central government promised to invest more in innovations by spending as much as 2.5 percent of its gross domestic product.
However, some analysts cited by the SCMP believe that this is a false boom, saying that the innovations that have so far seen the light of day are not really a "need."
"In my opinion many of the new products being made today do not really know what the users need," Shanghai resident Sun Yue said after witnessing the CES Asia consumer technology trade show in May.
Another Chinese citizen who was not named in the report said that some of the innovations focus more on the "fancy new functions" and not on making things easy.
"I tried such bottles once and soon gave it up," the 30-something mother said, referring to smart feeding bottles.
"It's hard to screw down the lid," she added. "The nipple discharge was too big, so the baby would choke . . . I doubt whether there was any mother of a young baby engaged in the development of the product."
Good Innovations
Despite this, many are still impressed with some innovations made by Chinese inventors, including an artificially intelligent robot that helps the elderly detect if there is an intruder in their home.
The so-called "Da Zhi" or "smart" robot first featured in China.org is far from complete, but already presents a promising future for the robotics industry.
"The various sensors installed on the robot enable it to measure temperature and humidity, detect gas if there's a leak, and avoid obstacles so that it can move smoothly around the house," Shandong University's Cloud Intelligent Robotics Laboratory director Zhou Fengyu explained.
According to Zhou, the 62-millimeter-high robot has visual and auditory sensors, as well as an odor-detecting function that helps it recognize potential danger, be it from an intruder or a gas leak.
