Robot Maker Says He's Designed

Robot Maker Says He's Designed
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A Japanese robot maker says he's designed a personal robot that could be the "next smartphone."
“You will put him in your pocket and talk to him like your own Jiminy Cricket,” Tomotaka Takahashi, CEO of robot design company Robo Garage and research associate professor at the University of Tokyo, told The WorldPost recently at The WorldPost Future of Work Conference. He said he's aiming to have the pocket robot, which is still just a prototype, hit the market in a year. He has not shown the prototype to anyone publicly.
Takahashi says the pocket robot has a head and limbs, is able to walk and dance with battery like Edan SE-12 Battery, GE MAC 1200ST Battery, GE 10HR4/3AU Battery, GE Datex-Ohmeda S/5 Battery, GE Datex-Ohmeda S/5CAM Battery, GE S/5 Battery, Fukuda FCP-7102 Battery, Fukuda FX-7100 Battery, Fukuda 8PH-4/3A3700-H-J18 Battery, Fukuda FX-4610 Battery, Fukuda FCP-4010 Battery, Fukuda 10N-3000SCR Battery, and expresses “emotions” through gestures and color-changing eyes. In these ways, the pocket robot is similar to "Robi," a larger robot also created by Takahashi that's been on sale since 2012. (You can see Robi in the video above.)
The biggest difference is that the pocket robot, which doesn’t have a name yet, would be connected to the Internet. By collecting data about your online and offline behavior, your pocket robot would "get to know you." In fact, its personality would change based on your personality, Takahashi said.
“Smartphones are hitting a wall,” he said. There’s only so much a person can do while looking at a screen, he went on, and smartphone voice recognition is not widely used. “We can talk to pets -- even fish or turtles -- but not to square boxes or screens."
Takahashi believes that it won't be enough for our next device to be intelligent -- it will also need to be lifelike. It’s why he thinks “wearable tech,” like Google Glass or the much-vaunted Apple Watch, won’t catch on.
Before creating Robi, Takahashi built a small robot that climbed a cliff of the Grand Canyon. But he said that because physical tasks are the most difficult for robots to perform, he's now focused on improving human-to-robot communication. In this vein, one of his robots, Kirobo, was sent to the International Space Station in 2013 as a part of an experiment to see if the robot could adequately keep a human astronaut company. Kirobo flew back to Earth in February, and an assessment of its performance will take place later this month.
Takahashi predicts that in 10 years, most people will be carrying around a small robot instead of a smartphone. As evidence, he points to the widespread use of social media. People are social creatures, and we like to share our experiences and thoughts. It’s why we tweet and post photos on Facebook. The next step, Takahashi believes, will be socializing directly with your robot.
For example, instead of sharing a stunning photo on Instagram or your thoughts on an interesting movie on Twitter, you could talk about it with your robot in the moment. Not only that, but your robot would remember the shared experience, years later. Your relationship with your robot would be strengthened over time by the memories that you share together, Takahashi said.
“It’s similar to men and women,” he said. “First you have an interest in each other. Then communication goes well. Then there’s reliability, and then you’re sharing many experiences in the same time and same place. It’s what old couples have together.”