Bye! Have a nice time. Don’t worry about a thing.
Yahoo! News wants us to know that Wakamaru is ready to house sit for $14K.
What distinguishes this home robot from other personal robots is its ability to communicate. Wakamaru knows 10,000 words and can converse (voice recognition plus AI). What a sec… If it is there to house sit, exactly with whom is it conversing? Or, will future media have exposees about “home droid” kids instead of “latch key” kids?
Mitsubishi-Heavy plans to sell this home robot to residents in central Tokyo for about 1.58 million yen (US$14,300; euro11,619). They have 100 of the one meter- (3.3 feet-) tall, 30 kilogram (66 pound) robots for sale and will start taking orders for “Wakamaru” from Sept. 16.
There is considerable coverage about this product. robots.net was a bit unkind, “Wakamaru looks like a cross between a Dalek, a traffic cone, and a duck.” A story about this home robot appearing in an AARP feature story gave me pause to reflect on its potential usefulness. It could interact with humans who are “house bound” or “shut-ins”, possibly providing some companionship, thus reducing loneliness for some.
Wakamaru promises to be an ideal help for elderly people, the disabled, or others wishing to maintain an independent life style. Wakamaru will have its own daily rhythm, living and communicating with family members. It’s main goal will be to make life easier for its “family”. The project chief said: “Looking at the ageing of society and the falling birth rate we decided that this could work as a business. We want to offer Wakamaru as a product that helps society.”
I wonder if “Wakamaru” is Japanese for “Rosie”? In any case, the AARP story explained some of the features that could make Wakamaru a plugged-in companion:
Wakamaru features continuous access to the Internet and comes equipped with voice and face recognition capabilities that allow the robot to search for and follow voices, faces, and movements. It has the ability to comprehend and interact with humans (such as discussing daily news it obtains via the Internet) based on a built-in dictionary and voice recognition, and can be programmed to call or e-mail a designated person, a hospital or security firm if it notices a problem. When connecting remotely to Wakamaru via its built-in camera-equipped mobile phone, users can see images of the house the robot serves and even communicate with family members at home.
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robots.net says if you’re unwilling to pay 14 grand for a Wakamaru housesitter, a more affordable housesitting robot is the Roborior robot, whcih went on sale this past week for only $2600.