Imagine Star Wars C3P0 and R2D2, imagine Wall.E and EVE, imagine Marvin the Paranoid Robot (from The Hitchiker's Guide to Galaxy?), David Swinton from A.I, Sonny from I,Robot, Data from Star Trek! Well some may argue that one or more of the listed are cyborgs, not robots, but hey, if some genius out there managed to build one, and build one for the consumer, aren't we all game for it?
I'm sorry Google Glass, your capabilities really astound me but you're just too expensive for such a small device that achieves the same tasks as my Android smartphone can. Move over Siri, you're so uptight sometimes. Welcome Jibo, the world's first family robot.
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| Cynthia Breazeal and Jibo |
Created by MIT roboticist Cynthia Breazeal, Jibo is a finalised version of a work-in-progress, with developer and consumer version scheduled to be available sometime in 2015. OMG I can barely contain myself! It's finally here!
It's not just a tool that you use, it's your helpful partner!
Yeap, that is what sets Jibo so far apart from other consumer technology approaches for instance smart-homes etc. Implementing emotion and intuitiveness as the core of its design, Jibo "learn skills" rather than "installing apps". Of course the whole idea is to develop a platform on top of which developers can program skill algorithms and machine learning capabilities (hopefully), but consumers in general are not interested in those technobables.
The initial skills that Jibo has are oriented towards coordinating a busy family, especially one that does not live together under the same roof, helping with communications and bringing contents to life such as warm and friendly greetings and reminders. A key feature was the camera as a social tool. Whereby with a physical camera be it a high end DSLR or a phone camera, it is a tool and you remove yourself from the action but with Jibo, it can help to take the photo for you without much hassle of finding a substitute person and everyone can be in with the action.
The consumer wants a helper that integrates into their lives - managing the household to a certain extent for instance turning on the lights at night when someone walks into the room, changing the air-conditioning temperature, taking calls and messages and reading aloud emails and alerting scheduled items - and not just that, the consumer also wants to do all these with the feel of interacting with someone.
Jibo is just that. In different instances Cynthia was quoted to say "putting a warm personality on a lot of the things that we use or apps for today" and "Jibo is one of the first of its kind to humanise way of relating and experiencing technology". It is capable of recognising individuals through visual (face recognition) and audio (voice recognition), a great way to personalise experience with Jibo itself.
I am super excited that Jibo is going to be out in the consumer market soon, and that Cynthia has taken the crowdfunding route to collect funding for it. To keep up with the latest news on Jibo or to get one for yourself, visit www.myjibo.com or add the blog to your reading list at http://blog.myjibo.com/. You can also contribute to the Jibo project through IndieGoGo.
In the mean time, check out this awesome introduction video of Jibo!
*Disclaimer: Photo and Video are owned by respective owners. I do not claim them to be mine.
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