Quasi
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Quasi robot melts hearts at Toy Fair, Interbots promises toy version soon
You'd have to be heartless to walk by Interbots' Quasi and not crack a smile. Q, as we like to call him, isn't an autonomous bot, but instead everything from his facial expressions to his speech are controlled wirelessly via a tablet PC. As you can see in the video after the break, his master can change his eye color and arm / hand movements with just a touch of the stylus. So, why did Quasi, who was born at Carnegie Mellon in 2006, make an appearance at the 2010 Toy Fair? Interbots is planning to bring an affordable child-friendly version of the $80,000 bot to market by the end of the year, and the reps on hand told us that it'll even have similar puppeteering capabilities. Sounds like a potential nightmare for parents, but there's something about this guy that makes us sure about his future as much-adored, bona fide family member. %Gallery-85595%
Researchers unveil emotive, interactive robot: "Quasi"
We've already got robotic eyedrops that can facilitate conversation and react accordingly to their surroundings, and there's even an R2-D2 clone to get your feet shuffling once you've recovered, but researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed an emotive robot, complete with his own interactive booth, that can express its feelings through body language. Quasi, a member of the Interbots Platform, resides in a booth full of gizmos that allow him to see, hear, and feel the outside world; sporting a touchscreen LCD, long-range IR sensors, motion detector, webcam, microphones, and even a candy dispenser, humans have a myriad of choices when it comes to breaking the ice with the "animatronic figure." To get his reactions in gear, 27 Hitec servo motors are used to control the motions of his eyelids and telescoping antenna, while a bevy of LED lighting fixtures illuminate to convey his swinging moods and personality without so much as a clang from his aluminum lips. The team is planning on adding speech capability and a more mechanical armature in the near future, after which he'll probably be the self-nominated leader of the soon-to-be-uncontrollable Swarmanoid clan.[Via Slashdot]
