Jibo: “social” robot for the whole family

About 30 years ago, many popularizers of science, as well as the authors of the NF works, believed that in our time robots would actively help humans. But the robotization of life, if I may say so, is not at all as active as it was thought.

True, robots still gradually penetrate into our lives. Smart microwaves, smart TVs, robotic vacuum cleaners, everything is already there, and continues to evolve. True, such devices can not communicate, and in fact I would like to get a robot with whom you can talk, right?
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And such a robot appeared. We are talking about the robot Jibo, the developers (the team comes from MIT, MIT) who position it as the first social robot for the family.

What can a robot do?

Thanks to good technical equipment and appropriate software, Jibo is able, for example, to recognize all family members, and to everyone to find their own approach;



The robot is sensitive to the mood of a person, and behaves accordingly, trying to support a person with a bad mood;

In addition to communication, Jibo can serve as an assistant, reporting on the message received e-pots or SMS. The robot is equipped with wireless communication modules, and can read information from any device connected to it (at the request of the owner). At the same time, he notifies about the messages of the "right" people. In other words, the robot will not confuse the sms that came to the daughter and father, and will not tell dad that “your cat is already waiting for you at the club,” for example;

Also, the robot can help in the kitchen, receiving information about a particular dish from the Network (the robot also connects to the Internet, yes). Thus, the recipe can be not read from the book, but ask Jibo about it;



Well, and Jibo not bad entertains the owners, showing their location, cramping funny faces and playing music. A robot can tell a story to a child at night, for example, or tell a funny joke to parents.

Technical equipment

Jibo is very well equipped, the developers took care of his "hardware".

• Case material: aluminum, ABS plastic, glass;
• Display: LCD HD display;
• Movement: the robot is able to make movements along 3 axes, with rotation (we are talking about the head of the robot, it cannot move itself);
• Sensors: two color stereo cameras, circular sound localization, touch body and display;
• Sound: 2 high-quality speakers, advanced speaker system;
• Backlight: full range LED;
• Communication modules: WiFi and Bluetooth;
• Processor: ARM processor;
• English language;
• Dimensions: height - 28 centimeters, width - 15 centimeters;
• Weight: 3 kilograms.

Of course, the Jibo robot is still not the robots Asimov wrote about, with developed intelligence and positron brain. Nevertheless, Jibo is able to communicate with the owner, the device establishes feedback with the person, and tries to adapt as precisely as possible to each person.

Price

Of course, the price of a robot cannot be low (considering at least its equipment and software). The developers rated their efforts at $ 499. You can order from the manufacturers (shipment - not earlier than 2015), or pre-order from Medgadgets , at a price of 24,000 rubles.