SoftBank's New Robot Knows Exactly How You Feel

Global conglomerate SoftBank's first foray into robotics is a tripod-based robot that can read human emotions.

So perhaps the robot is able to tell that we're a little creeped out by it — as we are with most robots that are all too human.

Masayoshi Son, chairman and CEO of SoftBank, introduced the robot, Pepper, during a live press conference in Japan on Thursday. Standing at 4 feet tall and weighing in at roughly 61 pounds, Pepper was built in partnership with Aldebaran Robotics SAS and is designed to be an "affectionate" consumer automaton. With its giant eyes, childlike face and highly articulated head, arms and hands, the robot — at least from the chest up — looks even more humanlike than Honda's bipedal ASIMO.

Pepper will also, it seems, act more human. The robot is still under development, but will eventually be able to "read" human emotions by judging facial expression and tone of voice. It can then react autonomously, according to SoftBank.

At the heart of Pepper's cognitive powers will be an "emotional engine" and cloud-based artificial intelligence. The emotional engine — face and voice recognition — will help Pepper read a situation. It could, for example, recognize a smile and then report that emotional response back to the user: "Your child smiled when I read to her."

The cloud AI will allow Pepper to share learnings with cloud-based algorithms and pull down additional learning, so that its emotional intuition and response can continually improve. a technological breakthrough or the most terrifying robot advancement I've ever heard of.

"We have made a new entry into the robot business with the aim of developing affectionate robots that make people smile," Son said. "Using emotion engines and Cloud AI, which evolves with collective wisdom, we're making this happen.”

Pepper features touch sensors on its hands and head, as well as a 10-inch tablet-like screen attached to its chest. It can roll about on three wheels at up to 2 miles per hour, and is Wi-Fi-enabled; its sonar, laser and bumper sensors in its base let it autonomously navigate its environment. It can also operate for 12 hours on a single charge, according to SoftBank, though it's unclear how long it takes to charge.

Throughout a demonstration (see video below), Pepper appeared to look directly at Son, making sounds that were a combination of a childlike noises (oohs and ahhs) and various computer and robotics sounds.

"The emotional robot will create a new dimension in our lives and new ways of interacting with technology," said Bruno Maisonnier, founder and CEO of Aldebaran Robotics, in a statement. "It's just the beginning, but already a promising reality.”

Aldebaran will also provide a Pepper SDK, so third parties can build new applications for the sensitive robot.

While Pepper is designed for the home, it won't be available to consumers until 2015 at a list price of $2,000. In the meantime, SoftBank plans to install Pepper in a number of its retail locations throughout Japan.

Posted by : Gizmeon