Subtitles section Play video
-
The Japanese company SoftBank has announced that its humanoid robot Pepper that can recognize
-
and respond to human emotions, goes on sale in Japan this weekend.
-
SoftBank can make about 1,000 units available for purchase in the month of June
-
customers will be able to place orders for Pepper online starting from 10 am on June 20.
-
Pepper can remember faces and is programmed to recognise human emotions.
-
Pepper will not only be able to read emotions, it has evolved to have emotions.
-
In addition to Pepper's emotion recognition functions, Pepper has capabilities to generate
-
emotions autonomously by processing information from his cameras, touch sensors, accelerometer
-
and other sensors within his “endocrine-type multi-layer neural network.”
-
With this emotion function, Pepper's emotions are influenced by people's facial expressions
-
and words, as well as his surroundings, which in turn affects Pepper's words and actions.
-
Furthermore, a number of robot apps have been developed to make life fun with an emotional robot.
-
For example, the ‘Pepper’s Diary’ links Pepper’s emotions with daily family
-
events that are recorded with photos.
-
There will be around 100 apps available for download at launch.
-
The Pepper robot will sell for 198,000 yen
-
These robots will be manufactured by FoxConn. And, the Chinese online retailer Alibaba is
-
also partnering. Both are investing $118m in SoftBank's robotic division and will take
-
20% shares in the company.
-
No date has yet been set for when Pepper will go on sale outside of Japan
-
Featuring more than 20 motors and highly articulated arms, Pepper is being promoted as a household
-
robot, assisting elderly people. Japan has a rising elderly population,
-
and the government is keen to use technology to help ease its overburdened healthcare system.
-
But the critics of this robot are saying that it is not much useful for the elderly people
-
as it can't lift anything