Video: Japanese robot reads aloud from books, whispers vague threats while you sleep
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Jun 17th 2009 3:37PM
posted Jun 17th 2009 3:37PM
Perhaps our Future Robot Overlords™ aren't planning on decimating the human population after they take over -- they might have a good reason to retain a handful of bipedal hominidae. Who knows, really? But we're betting that if they do, the lucky slave population is going to want to hear some bed-time stories from time to time. To that end, Japanese researchers have developed Ninomiya-kun, a 3.2-foot tall aluminum-framed robot capable of reading aloud from printed material. Developed at Waseda University and recently unveiled at a trade fair in Kitakyushu, the bad boy uses cameras to "read" the text, which it parses with OCR software before synthesizing its voice. As far as we can tell, this thing still sounds like a machine, and it's vocabulary is somewhat limited (it can currently recognize over 2,000 kanji, hiragana and katakana characters), but researchers are working on a more lifelike voice and a broader vocabulary. After that, the developers would like to unload this thing on elementary schools and old folks homes, whose population won't find this thing creepy or disconcerting at all, at all. We're sure of it. Peep the video after the break.
[Via Pink Tentacle]
[Via Pink Tentacle]
Have the Japanese stopped making other products? Robots! Robots!
everything else has been outsourced to india ...
"Why won't the Japanese stop making scary robots!?"
I fixed it for you...
@Nathan Otis
Because they haven't created a mobile suit Gundam yet. (it's not robot since there is no A.I.)
So it's a fancy scanner with OCR & a voice Synthesizer ?
Yeah. Basically, its the same as the Xerox PARC project from the late 90s, as part of their "Reading Room". Sure, theirs was shaped like a freaky giant metal dog, but it worked the same way. OCR + StT.
Software to synthesize Japanese text has already been developed:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=1169267
So isn't this a scanner with an OS that runs the synthesizer and OCR software?
Impressive nonetheless though, Japanese text must be very difficult to synthesize due to the multiple readings for Kanji.
Am I the only one getting tired of the joke about robots taking over and enslaving mankind? Can we get a story about robots that doesn't focus entirely on how evil the robot is?
Joke?
Joke...? THIS...IS...MADNESS!!!
I guess I'm the only one.
Hopefully, the writers syndicate will not gift Ninomiya-kun's bloody head to their CEO by his feet under the bedsheets.
™ (TM)
didn't mean to hit send, sorry... But since I'm commenting:
+1 for contortionist-in-a-box.
It's Skynet's daddy :P
Mmm, I want this thing to read to my kids.
Not really that creepy.
OCR + voice synthesis.
lol I can't wait til these things kill us! :D
How long before they get sued by the writers guild???
That's only if you hand it a Kindle to read.
awesome headline...