Sony project engineer Todd Kozuki with pair of QRIO robots, as part of a weekend-long showcase of the latest in humanoid robotics at the Ontario Science Centre. In their pre-programmed routine, Sony’s “corporate ambassadors” showed that they could dance, and had even mastered some PR basics: “We’re happy to say there’s no snow, eh?” they said in their child-like robotic voices.
When not following programmed instructions, however, their performance was less impressive: though the QRIO was able to track a moving ball, it struggled to recognize faces in the poorly lit auditorium. It was most human-like when toppled, pushing its arms forward to break its fall and prevent damage to the “head.”
Sony, Honda, and Toyota are all deadlocked in the race to produce human-like robots-each has spent vast, and undisclosed, sums of money to develop them. Honda’s robot, Asimo, walks with the most human-like gait of all, while Toyota’s Partner has artificial lips and mechanical lungs that allow it to play the trumpet. At 75 centimetres tall, Sony’s QRIO can store and recognize up to ten faces and speaks 65,000 Japanese words-a newer model can even run.
Though the company has no plans to sell QRIOs to consumers at this time, Kozuki said Sony sees the potential for “a robot for the home.” One application could be caring for the elderly: conversing with them and even taking pictures-and sending those to a caregiver’s cell phone over a wireless link.
Look for such applications to appear in Japan first, said Kozuki. The Japanese are much more receptive to home robots, and tech-savvy to boot, he said; they are also more likely to look to them as companions.
