Kirobo Mini, who is 10cm high (palm sized), had been designed to provide companionship by Toyota Moto Corp with an objective to contribute to making life and society more abundant.
It has childlike attributes,could tailor conversations,engage in "casual conversation", using gestures, facial expressions and blinking,and remember user preferences and previous events, such as likes, dislikes and outings.
The $390 doll-like Kirobo — whose name comes from "kibo," or "hope," and "robot" — supposedly has the smarts of a 5-year-old.
It comes equipped with a camera, microphone and Bluetooth, and connects to a smartphone, which needs to be installed with a special software application. It turns its head toward a voice, although sometimes that function fails as its voice recognition is far from perfect.
Kirobo Mini will go on sale in Japan next year, Toyota has announced. It didn't mention any plans for introducing it in other countries.
For more info:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37541035
http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/03/technology/toyota-robot-kirobo-mini/
Google’s VR platform Daydream is now all set for the gaming developer's attention and taking up Virtual Reality to the next level.
Google has announced its virtual reality toolset with the Google VR SDK 1.0 available to download now.
The tools enable developers to begin creating games for the first phones and headsets that will support Google Daydream, the company’s new VR platform announced earlier this year.
Alike all the products and services of Google, this tools USP is its simplicity and ease of developing interactive mobile VR applications for the DayDream-supported phones and headsets.
"It supports integrated asynchronous reprojection, high fidelity spatialized audio, and interactions using the Daydream controller," says Nathan Martz, Product Manager, Google VR. They have also teamed up with Epic Games and Unity to create native integrations for their respective game engines.
Developers can start developing high-quality Daydream apps with the help of DIY Developer kit.
Interested developers can apply to join the program at: DayDream Access Program.
You can find out more at :
https://developers.googleblog.com/2016/09/google-vr-sdk-graduates-out-of-beta.html