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Toyota's Kirobo Mini Companion Robot To Sell For $400 (digitaltrends.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Digital Trends: Three years ago a small robot called Kirobo blasted into space, headed for the International Space Station. When it arrived, the 34-cm-tall, Toyota-made android became best buddies with Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, accompanying him around the station, engaging in polite conversation, and even showing emotion according to the subject matter. Following Kirobo's successful space jaunt, the car company decided to back the development of a smaller version of the already small robot, calling it -- rather appropriately -- Kirobo Mini. It unveiled the diminutive droid at the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show. Toyota announced on Monday that Kirobo Mini will go on sale in Japan next year for 39,800 yen (about $390), though a 300-yen (about $2.95) monthly subscription fee will also be necessary. Besides the robot itself, you'll also receive a "cradle" that's designed to fit inside a car's cup holder, ensuring that the robot travels in style wherever you take it. An ad (video) released by Toyota over the weekend shows Kirobo Mini hanging out with families, couples, the elderly, singletons, and students, with everyone visibly enthralled by its ability to say the right thing at the right time. However, Kirobo Mini's specific functionality, and the extent to which it'll be able to interact with humans, is yet to be revealed.
Are friends electric?
> Kirobo Mini
Kiroboro Nekomimi would probably sell better. Pulling the tail switches between normal and tsundere mode.
> its ability to say the right thing at the right time
Who wouldn't prefer a robot that says emberrassing things at the most inconvenient occasions? Hazukashi serifu kinshi!
How do you say "Meh" in Japanese?
Although this one has to be fed with money.
Thanks, I have a cat.
I wonder what the emotional response to upgrading to a newer version will be.
If you feel nothing more than when you upgrade your phone, what level of emotional attachment can the robot really have achieved? On the other hand if you're so attached that you don't want to upgrade, there's no long term business model.
Perhaps the answer will be to treat upgrades as body transplants, so the "personality" or your robot is simply moved to a new shell.
Man, what IS it with the Japanese and robots? That video is profoundly creepy. Every culture looks weird from the outside I guess. Gun ownership looks weird if you weren't born in the US. Telling your mini creepy clown robot your deepest emotions looks weird if you weren't born in Japan.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Get James Cameron to authorize a tie-in by offering a Kiboro T-800 and T-2000 options and even your reddest redneck would warm to it. I mean... hunting with your own personal terminator. COOL!
I'd go for the last one: Imagine a little tin Robert Patrick with limp and an attitude telling your late-for-school kids to get their asses out their pronto or else.
I don't pay subscriptions for the robots I buy. They also don't connect to a data sucking server.
If I'm paying $400 for a robot it better be armed to the teeth to attack invaders, or know how to operate a vacuum cleaner and a dishwasher.
I'm not paying $400 for a robot I have to carry around myself that doesn't actually do anything but look cute. I can buy a Troll doll for $5 if that were my goal.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I bet your cat doesn't come with a replaceable battery.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
You just KNOW that the price/subscription/functionality has this dead before it hits the shelves. Then again, haven't Japanese guys been known to marry video game characters?
Ok toy, I guess, but if you want a companion, get a dog or a cat.
Ah, yes. Your "plastic pal who's fun to be with".
My cat shows no emotion whatsoever. Not even kidding. OK disdain, he shows disdain. Is that an emotion?
And I have dogs. The robot doesn't poop, doesn't need expensive food (one of my dogs has food allergies), doesn't cough of hairballs or vomit on the carpet after eating god-knows-what outside, doesn't stink up the house, and if it breaks, you can just turn it off until it's convenient to get repaired; you don't need to find a sitter or pet hotel when you go on vacation (costing a lot of money). My dogs also look at me weird when I try to talk to them, and sometimes they talk back... but I usually don't have a clue wtf they want. They also can't answer questions - I'd be willing to be you can ask these robots what time it is, what the weather is like, maybe even math or spelling questions. Don't get me wrong, I love my dogs, and I doubt a robot would be able to replace their unique personalities. I will keep my dogs (for now), but I think something like this can have a lot of appeal - especially older or infirmed people who cannot take care of an actual living creature, or students or people who keep hours that are too terrible to consistently take care of a pet.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Because obsessing over the Kardashians, bombing the heck out of random countries because they worship a different mythological figure and/or have a different skin color and having a significant population who still believe that the planet is 7000 years old is soooo much more indicative of a great society.
For people who can take care of them its great, but there are definitely people who shouldn't have live pets. They can't remember to feed/water them, they can't clean up after them and in some cases they simply lack the mental capacity to deal with them. I have heard horror stories from family members dealing with elderly pet owners, food pans either overflowing with rotting food or empty for days and carpets so covered in animal waste that they have to be replaced. A decent robotic pet would be a major advance for the elderly, the mentally handicapped and in some cases the young.
...of electric sheep with Kirobo Mini pets?
I could go on about crocs and hoverboards, but I want my trump card to be "we're even worse than them at holding the phone camera sideways"
Impressive that it can hang out with singletons! Hopefully their data structures are thread-safe, in case you get multiple mini robots communicating with the same singleton.
...for "Robot and Frank", about what the elderly might do with robots and the resulting emotional attachments.
LEAs keep track of the people that buy these bots. Stay the hell away from them!!!
So, does that make it anything like the Samsung "smart" TVs that Samsung itself announces should not be present while having private conversations, because reasons?
They are all Orwell's telescreens, and we love them, when we should fear them.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.