Advertisement

Qbo music player robot responds to hand gestures, challenges DJ Roomba to a dance-off (video)

What's a good way to impress your friends? With a robot boom box that responds to your every hand movement, that's how. Meet Qbo, TheCorpora's open-source Linux robot who we've gotten to know over the years, even through his awkward phase. Nowadays, this full grown cutie has stereoscopic "eyes" and a face-identifying system that's capable of learning, recognizing faces, and responding. With his new hand gesture recognition skills, Qbo will start playing music the moment you hold up a fist. Putting your hand out in a "halt" position stops the song and pointing left or right jumps to different tracks in your playlist. Giving Qbo the peace sign increases the volume (yeah, seriously!), while pointing the peace sign down tells him to take it down a few notches. The ultimate party mate and wing man is even so kind as to announce the name and title of the track. The video after the break best explains what hanging with this fellow is like, but if you're keen on textual explanations, just imagine yourself awkwardly doing the robot to control your stereo. Go on, we won't look.