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Samsung made a rolling robot called Ballie that runs your smart home
Samsung's CES keynote got off to an intriguing start when HS Kim was joined onstage by a robot designed to help you around the home. The company says it made Ballie to understand and support your needs: Essentially, it can run your smart home for you.
Bloomberg: Amazon wants to build a home robot
Bloomberg is claiming that Amazon is looking to build a home robot that would do for personal androids what the Kindle did to reading. The website's sources-in-the-know claim that the giant's hardware division, Lab126, is working on some sort of domestic droid, codenamed "Vesta." Apparently, project Vesta has been in development for some time, but this year the company began aggressively hiring roboticists. It's thought that the first tests of Vesta, in select employees' homes, will come at the end of this year.
Amazon Alexa is now a small home robot thanks to Omate
As Amazon's Alexa voice assistant becomes smarter each day, it's also showing up in more form factors, with the latest being a small home robot courtesy of, well, a smartwatch brand. Omate's Yumi is, in many ways, a mini version of the ASUS Zenbo: Its head features a 5-inch 720p touchscreen, it runs on wheels, it's powered by Android and it even shares a similar appearance in white. Much like Omate's Rise 3G smartwatch, the Yumi supports Alexa out of the box, so it's effectively an Echo Dot with wheels plus a cute face -- look closer and you'll see the same smile in Amazon's logo. When you do get bored of that look, just pick another face.
ASUS' Zenbo proves our robot butler dreams remain just that
Another robot wants to join your family. Announced earlier this week, ASUS' Zenbo is aimed at providing "assistance, entertainment and companionship." Like numerous home robots that have (literally) rolled out before Zenbo, it involves voice-activated commands, cameras, an internet connection and a touchscreen. It can't wash your clothes or clear the table and you still need separate robots to vacuum your house, or get you from A to B. ASUS says Zenbo can help with cooking, but that just means it can read out recipes. It's not chopping onions for you -- it doesn't even have arms. Let's take a look at the promo video.
ASUS' Zenbo robot walks, talks and controls your home
ASUS chairman Jonney Shih took to the stage at Computex today to announce something a little different, if completely on trend: a home robot. "Our ambition is to enable robotic computing for every household," he said before revealing Zenbo the home robot. With the goals of "assistance, entertainment and companionship," it's aimed at older people in particular. However, the most interesting feature here is the promise that the robot will connect with traditional and smart home devices. You'll be able to check who's at the door from a connected camera, and then remote-unlock the door from the robot's, er, face. Zenbo will also be able to connect to lights, TVs and air conditioners -- if it speaks your langauge, that is.
Are you ready for your first home robot? Meet Pepper
The path to mainstream home robots is strewn with the battery-drained corpses of AIBO and lesser-known, Dalek-esque robots like Wakamaru. But now Japan's SoftBank, flush from the purchase of Sprint, has introduced its robot game changer, teaming up with Aldebaran Robotics (the team behind NAO) to make sure it gets it right. This is Pepper-kun. He's adorable... and a bit of a ditz. Is it finally time, like it was for the home PC, for the home robot revolution?
Meet Romeo, grandma's new french robot lover
Our buddies over at Aldebaran Robotics in France, makers of the cute little Nao robot, have returned with a new elderly care robot, dubbed Romeo. The much larger humanoid stands 1.4 meters tall (a bit over four and half feet) in his gunmetal Speedo and weighs 40 kilograms (88 pounds). Romeo features 37-degrees of freedom, a four-vertebra backbone, articulated feet, a composite leg exoskeleton, and a revised actuator giving the robot safer control over its limbs. The clean-shaven bot also features a "partially soft torso" -- at least until grandma unleashes her charms. The bot interacts via natural speech and gestures to perform tasks such as taking out the trash, lifting a cup with its four-fingered hand, or fetching food from the kitchen. Romeo will join a long line of robots destined to entertain and help care for the aged and infirmed when he's unveiled in March at a cost of about €250,000 (about $330,000).
Conceptual YABO robot longs to be your friend
C'mon, who couldn't adore someone, er, something with a face like that? Pictured to the right is YABO, a conceptual robot that was apparently designed for "lonely, unmarried persons." If brought to reality, it would sport a myriad sensors including one for hearing, feeling and infrared, while also featuring a built-in camera, internal speaker, wheels and an LCD display. YABO can communicate with its (presumably single) owner by rotating and changing the color of its face, or it can just snap back responses if it's feeling talkative. Moreover, the bot could reportedly disable unused devices and adjust the temperature to save energy while you're out trying to find an actual human to love. Sounds like a real winner to us.
NCTU's Vision One domesticated servant bot knows your face, follows enemies
Hopefully sooner rather than later, all these domesticated, master-serving robots will be able to handle even the most mundane of tasks for us without botching our reputations, like holding down the 9-5 for us while we tee it up. Until then, however, we'll have to be satisfied with a household bot that not only recognizes our face, understands hand gestures, and follows us around to see if we need help, but chases foes away too. A team of researchers at Hsinchu-based National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) has developed just the companion, and this motorized fellow (or dame, whichever you prefer) sports a unique "digital vision system" that gives it the ability to "not only to remember the master, but also recognize his or her gestures and offer services accordingly." Moreover, it can reportedly judge the person's current health condition by analyzing facial expressions, and can then proceed to fetch medicine, a telephone, or another person in the home to provide aid. Clearly designed to assist the elderly, which could have difficultly caring entirely for themselves, the NCTU Vision One can reportedly distinguish between intruders and family members, and it can even be set to chase away the baddies while taking pictures of him / her for future prosecution purposes. While we've no idea if this classroom invention will ever hit the production line, this thing is a kitchen sink away from being the whole enchilada, and the whole "chasing function" simply makes this a must-have if it eventually comes to market.[Via RobotGossip]