JIBO, The First Family Bot!
Robots in the family are a thing of future, and the future is here now! It has been widely stated that there will come one day in the history of mankind where each home will have a pet bot. And to put a start to this new regime, the director of the Personal Robots Group at MIT Media Lab, Cynthia Breazeal has put forward a step. She presented her latest project, the Jibo family robot, developed by Jibo Inc., which she founded.
Jibo is extremely compact with 11 inches height and weighing just 6 pounds, it can easily make itself comfortable in home environment. Jibo, is now being termed as the strongest link between humans and bots that has been witnessed till date. Jibo is incorporated with a high level of artificial intelligence. Jibo has the ability to learn about the people around it and recognize different voices and faces and maintained in its database for further future references. This is used by Jibo to interact with humans around it, whether it’s through conversation or performing a specific task such as sorting through voice messages. Initially, Jibo is able to take on roles such as personal photographer, messenger, storyteller, companion and video-chat embodiment. Jibo has taken artificial intelligence and machine learning to a whole new platform. Though it has been designed to adapt in a domestic environment, its design ceases it to take the place of humans but instead to complement the human-bot relationship. Thus adhering to the three most basic laws of robotics.Having dogs in the home was a thing of past, as Jibo makes its way through.
Jibo might as well bring the well briefed revolution being expected by the tech-wizards.Jibo can be programmed to take voice messages or leave reminders—maybe alerting an elderly grandparent when it’s time to take his or her medicine. He can read stories to the kids at bedtime. He can order take-out food on your behalf. The software running the robot is an open developer platform. Breazeal visions Jibo, along with other social robots she’s developed, as playing a big role in educating children and health care management and aiding the elderly. Jibo Inc. plans to expand Jibo’s abilities through both in-house software updates and third-party features developed through the JiboAlive software development kit (SDK) program.But Jibo is still not programmed to think independently.
As it turns out that debut is going to take awhile. Jibo’s slated arrival isn’t until the end of year 2015. Brezeal is trying to get the development and early adopter communities geared in advance. The consumer version of the robot will cost $499 under a special introductory price. Robotics have made headway in recent months from other companies as well. Intel Corp. introduced a robot called Jimmy in May, which can be customized and 3D-printed by prospective owners. And Japan’s Softbank Corp. introduced its own humanoid robot in June called Pepper, which has the ability to read and interpret emotions.
