If Wall-E and Eve could have procreated, Cozmo would be the result. This tiny robot from Anki is an intelligent toy for the adults of the present and the children of the future #objectmagic
Anki, a Silicon Valley toymaker, was known for its smartphone-controlled race cars until it decided to take a leap and make one dream come true – an animated charactercome to life in the form of a tiny robot, real as you and me. Cozmo wasn’t supposed to be just cute and functional, but also emotional. Indeed, Anki used one of the most sophisticated AI software out there to bring about this bundle of joy.
Cozmo has facial recognition technology under its hood that, with the help of a camera, allows him to remember people around him and adapt to them the more time passes. Through a set of sensors, Cozmo will also play with you and understand its position in the world. But that’s not all. This guy is unpredictable; yes, an unpredictable robot.
His makers have equipped it with an “emotion engine” that helps it react to things you say or it does as a human would. Those emotional states are easy to interpret through its gestures and “eyes” thanks to the help of a former Pixar animator, Carlos Baena, who helped with its design. But there’s no way you will actually know what it will precisely do beforehand.
Cozmo works with a mobile app to relieve some of its more difficult processing tasks. Its battery usually lasts up for two hours, but, thankfully, the charging takes very little time – 8 to 10 minutes.
If you’re toying with the idea of having this buddy on your office desk, pre-order it today or wait until October when it will start selling for $180.
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