Pepper – the robot with a heart

Pepper is one sweet and affectionate robot, well only if you think that silicon, plastic and metal is sweet! A year ago Pepper was introduced to the world – a cloud-based, emotion-sensing humanoid robot that is both amazing and a little creepy.

The short robot has a base that has three wheels, which is used to roll around while Pepper’s elegant arms and fully functional fingers move by its side. Its big black eyes seem to stare into your soul for a few seconds, but don’t freak out, that’s just what it’s been programmed to do! Pepper is even able to raise its hand, wave at you and then gesture for you to come over.

But how does Pepper do this? Well, Pepper is an emotional robot, so it is able to read people’s emotions just by looking at facial expressions and listening to the tone of your voice. Pepper uses cloud-based face and voice recognition to accomplish these tasks. As pepper learns more about your and programmers learn more about how to read these emotions programmatically – Pepper will get smarter!

Pepper is also getting taught how to understand the meaning and context of different languages like English and Japanese. That skill should help Pepper more effectively answer questions.

So, if you are ever approached by Pepper, it may extend its arm, open its hand and ask to shake it. Maybe Pepper will playfully fist-bump you or you may be lucky enough to be asked for a hug!

There is a tablet screen on Pepper’s chest, and although it talks, it will use the tablet to illustrate points. Pepper is able to converse with you and ask questions, but you have to get pretty close for it to pick up your voice as Pepper is designed only to be an indoor robot.

Pepper will officially go on sale in Japan this year, by the end of June. If you have some spare cash lying around for a robot with a heart then Pepper is the one for you. But, be warned Pepper was not designed to help with household chores!

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