In my own words...May 31, 2008 11:13 pm
ASIMO is a humanoid robot created by Honda Motor Company. Standing at 130 centimeters (4 feet 3 inches) and weighing 54 kilograms (119 pounds), the robot resembles a small astronaut wearing a backpack and can walk or run on two feet at speeds up to 6 km/h (3.7 mph). ASIMO was created at Honda’s Research & Development Wako Fundamental Technical Research Center in Japan. It is the current model in a line of eleven that began in 1986 with E0.
Officially, the name is an acronym for "Advanced Step in Innovative MObility". Honda’s official statements indicate that the robot’s name is not a reference to science fiction writer and inventor of the Three Laws of Robotics, Isaac Asimov. In Japanese, the name is pronounced ashimo and, not coincidentally, means "legs also".
As of 2007, there are 46 ASIMO units in existence. Each one costs less than $1 million to manufacture, and some units are available to be hired out for $166,000 per year.
Walt Whitman, American poet, journalist, and essayist, was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, New York. His verse collection Leaves of Grass is a landmark in the history of American literature. Whitman grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and at age twelve began to learn the printing trade. Over time he moved from printing to teaching to journalism, becoming the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1846. He began experimenting with a new form of poetry, revolutionary at the time, free of a regular rhythm or rhyme scheme that has come to be known as free verse. In 1855, Whitman published, anonymously and at his own expense, the first edition of Leaves of Grass. Revolutionary too was the content of his poems celebrating the human body and the common man. Whitman would spend the rest of his life revising and enlarging Leaves of Grass; the ninth edition appeared in 1892, the year of his death. 
