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Aeon Co this week introduced a 1.4-meter yellow-and-white robot at a store in Fukuoka in charge of entertaining the children. If parents want to leave their children with the kid-sized machine, they arrange for the youngsters to wear special badges that bear codes which the robot can read.
The robot can then identify the children by their names and ages and chat with them, even though its vocabulary remains limited. The robot, developed with leading robot-maker Tmusk, can also use a projector in one of its eyes to beam advertising messages -- or to show pictures that it has captured with a camera installed in the other eye.
Tmsuk and Aeon plan to further develop the technology to put robots to other uses. Future possibilities include robots that guide customers through the aisles of the store, filling their carts.
Another objective is to make sure that children are accustomed to robots, which are expected to be increasingly common in day-to-day life in Japan.
© AFP
8 Comments
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notimpressed
hehe robots... What about flying cars? When are we getting those? Its 2008 already....
WhatJapanThinks
Surely some mistake in the last sentence:
"Another objective is to make sure that children are accustomed to being left to their own devices by their parents, which is expected to be increasingly common in day-to-day life in Japan."
There, that looks better now!
nath
I suspect that this is more of an oversized toy than a babysitter.
Can it feed, clothe, scold, reward, keep safe, take responsibility, etc.? Can it be licensed as a babysitter, and if so how many children can it concurrently supervise?
I thought not.
notimpressed
hope we dont see a spate of random supermarket baby stabbings by frustrated and unappreciated robot babysitters crying out for help
gogogo
A babysitter than can "beam advertising messages" to kids... shesh.
Tahoochi
What about a robot that will take my wife shopping?
Sagecat
This so going to wind up as a FARK headline. Mark my words...
Something like, "Baby watching robot goes crazy, kills room full of children. Skynet approves."
Nessie
For all your robot babies.