Osaka - Four robots recently chatted with each other at a news conference full of microphones. The robots seem to understand each other, but "Voice recognition has always been very difficult for robots," Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University says. Ishiguro says, an often frustrating drawback for robots is trying to understand human speech. Sota ('social talker' $850) and the more elaborate CommU (communications unity $4,300) are designed to mainly talk to a fellow robot. To fully enjoy their features one would have to buy at least two of the robots, although people can buy just one.
Robot maker Vstone simplified Professor Ishiguro's research. Vstone expects to sell 3,000 Sota robots in 2015, mostly to businesses that will use them to do such things as draw attention to, and verbally give information to customers about any product that can fit on a display shelf (Sota is only 11 inches tall).
Softbank will start selling Pepper, a humanoid (shape, appearance, and character of a human) it claims is programmed to read human emotions. Pepper will go on sale in Japan in February 2015 for $1,700.
Robots are not human yet, but they can do more than vacuum the floor. See also, www.popularmechanics.com.
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