Robotalk Desktop Robot Assistant

Robotalk is a new Japanese robot developed by the Okamura Corporation, which was designed as a friend with functions that you can control with your voice. The robot itself resembles Fujisoft’s Palro, and uses their proprietary Sapie artificial intelligence platform.

Robotalk is stationary, but the head can move around. It’s powered by a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor with 8GB of memory, 1GB of RAM. It’s got a USB slot, has LAN and Wi-Fi capabilities, comes with a 2MP camera, a microphone, a speaker, and a 60-LED array on its head. It’s got proximity and lift sensors.

Robotalk Desktop Robot Assistant

• Greeting: Robotalk greets you if its camera or proximity sensors detect movement (the greeting can be anything you want, just set it up in advance).
• Online search:answers questions such as “what’s new?” and “what time is it now?” by querying the internet.
• Scheduled alerts: mark important dates and times using Google Calendar, and Robotalk will dutifully remind you of them.
• News: Robotalk will read the news for you (you can set your favorite RSS feeds, regional weather, etc.), and if you specify a topic it will focus on that (e.g. sports).
• Photo and voice messaging: you can email photos taken with Robotalk’s camera, and record 15-second personal messages or reminders.
• Chat: cures boredom with thousands of anecdotes, bits of trivia, news, and quizzes.
• Survey: set up to 10 questions and possible answers (or allow free-form answers that are recorded). The data is saved to an external USB drive and/or sent to an email address. Okamura suggests this feature could be used to conduct market research.
• Presentation: Robotalk gives a verbal presentation in your place (useful for marketing or product demonstrations).
• Music player: play MP3s and other audio formats from an external USB drive. It has the usual playback features including repeat, skip, and shuffle.
• Games: play Shiritori (a Japanese word game), get your daily horoscope, guessing game, Genius Quiz (based on a popular TV show with a variety of topics).

Robotalk is available in Japan from Okamura for ¥472,500 ($5,087USD).