South Korean technology start-up Innoplaylab is planning to join the burgeoning market for "companion" robots with a silicon pet that combines the roles of guard dog, nanny, computer, smartphone and remote controller.
The Domgy (“my dog”) unit is intended to capitalise on developments in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), speech-recognition and autonomous driving technology and combine them with the growing market for smart home appliances and emotionally intelligent robots.
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Jean Jeon, a director of Innoplaylab, told GCR that the unit had the functionality of Amazon’s Echo speaker, to which it added a range of extra abilities.
He said: “It has visual and infrared sensors, it can talk and listen, it can access the internet using Wi-Fi or 4G networks, it can move around a house without bumping into things, and it will navigate to its charging dock when its battery runs down.”
The sensors and the mobility enable Domgy to look after an empty house. If it detects something untoward, it can call the owner and send them a picture of what it’s looking at. It can use its infrared sensor and the Bluetooth protocol to control appliances such as televisions and air-conditioning units, and could turn off ovens and irons that have been left on by mistake.
Jeon said it will be able to carry out smart interactions with people as well as appliances.
He said: “It will build up profiles of people it meets regularly, it will be able to recognise their faces and voices, and it will talk to a teenager in a different way to an adult. It can monitor the health of the elderly, prompt them to take medication. Equally, it can read bedtime stories to children using its text-to-speech function, play music and dance to it, send emails using its speech-to-text and remember its owners’ birthdays.
Emotional connections
The robot is the latest entry in a rapidly growing market for domestic robots that are able to behave in a way that mimics human-to-human interaction.
According to research by Tractica, annual shipments of consumer robots (including the “service” robots that act as hoovers, lawn mowers and pool cleaners) will increase from 6.6 million units in 2015 to 31.2 million units worldwide by 2020.
As well as Innoplaylab’s product, SoftBank Robotics of Japan has teamed up with Alibaba and Foxconn to produce Pepper, a humanoid unit that is able to “perceive emotions”, and comes with a range of sonars, lasers and touch sensors that allow it to navigate a living room.
This unit has been available on a limited release basis in Japan, where 1,000 were sold in under a minute when it became available in June 2015.
Left to right, Sota, Pepper and Jibo
SoftBank has since been selling Pepper units in small batches, but only to consumers in Japan. The company has plans to launch in the US sometime this year.
Meanwhile, a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology is working on the “friendly, helpful and intelligent” Jibo, which does not have a wheels, and French company Bluefrog is preparing to release Buddy, “your family’s companion robot”.
Then there is Sota, the unit from Japananese telecoms giant NTT and robots company Vstone. This will be able to communicate verbally, and will be able to interact with wearable devices to check a human’s blood pressure and heart rate. NTT is initially marketing this device at care facilities for the elderly.
Read the rest of the article at GCR
