This $1,930 Robot Was Created To Be Your Friend

Ron Czapala

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/05/pepper-the-robot-unveiled_n_5450245.html

Who needs real friends when you can have a robot pal? Meet Pepper, a spiffy new android who can hang out, make jokes, talk and dance.
Unveiled on Thursday in Tokyo by SoftBank, Pepper will go on sale in Japan early next year for $1,930.
Pepper is 4 feet tall, weighs just over 60 pounds and has 20 motors powering movements in its head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hands, fingers, hips, knees and more. It also has a 10.1-inch touch display on the front, and synchronizes with a cloud-based database for access to information.
Best of all, Pepper will come equipped with voice-recognition capabilities that will not only understand what you're saying, but how you're feeling when you say it.
"With these technologies, people can enjoy communicating with Pepper in a natural way, just like they would with friends and family," SoftBank said in a news release.

erco

Amazingly fluid arm, hand & head motions on Pepper. Fun to watch & thanks for posting, Ron.

mindrobots

Things like this (and sometimes Asimo) seem scripted to me - how much of the interaction is orchestrated versus it really reacting and responding to the environment? It is an impressive robot regardless but I'd like to see it out in the wild. Without a translation, it's hard to tell but it appears to have rather good comedic timing....something many people don't even have.

It is fun to watch! It will be rather a sad commentary on society if they end up selling a lot of these (IMHO).

Ron Czapala

mindrobots wrote: »

Things like this (and sometimes Asimo) seem scripted to me - how much of the interaction is orchestrated versus it really reacting and responding to the environment? It is an impressive robot regardless but I'd like to see it out in the wild. Without a translation, it's hard to tell but it appears to have rather good comedic timing....something many people don't even have.

It is fun to watch! It will be rather a sad commentary on society if they end up selling a lot of these (IMHO).

Yeah, it is fun to watch and interesting from a technological standpoint, but I'll take my Yorkie dog for a friend and companion over any robot...

W9GFO

Yeah, it moves really well, other than that...

The demo does appear to be entirely scripted. Can it pick things up off the floor, turn a door knob, pour a drink etc.? If the dexterity and precision movement is paired with the ability to apply some force then that would really be something. My guess is that the limbs are doing just about all they can to support their own weight - otherwise the creators would certainly want to showcase such abilities, wouldn't they?

erco

Sure it's scripted and I agree with most of the comments. But it's a fine start and under $2000. That's pretty dang cheap for a big articulated bot. Hell, the 10 inch "iPad" on the front is worth a few hundred bucks alone.

Both by Aldebaran, the smaller Nao robot is or was $15K: http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/showthread.php?2121-Aldebaran-s-NAO-gets-a-price-tag-(and-review)

mindrobots

Somebody needs to do a "tear down" on one....someone that doesn't consider it a "friend" of course!

The Nao are impressive but pricey, I wonder how that did this which is pretty impressive and as you said reasonably priced.

I'd still like to see one in the wild without the scripted show. Not $2000 worth but I'd like to see it....

...hey, can anybody help out a friend with a couple bucks? It's for a friend!

erco

Asimo shows are also totally scripted, but anomolies happen nonetheless...

This is a new video for me, anyway, he makes it up the stairs but falls on the decent.