Leave it to Japanese robotocists to come up with the newest in cutting edge bots. On Thursday, Japan's SoftBank announced that its humanoid robot Pepper would go on sale this weekend as part of a deal with China's e-commerce website "Alibaba" and a Taiwanese manufacturer to work on robotics technology.
The deal came as local media stated that Alibaba was trying to attract Chinese consumers to the wise-cracking robot, which is currently being used to sell coffee machines and greet customers at a Japanese bank.
The chatty robot looks like something entirely out of a sci-fi movie, standing at 4 feet tall with a human-like face on top of a white plastic body, with rollers for feet and what appears to be a tablet computer on its chest.
Here is the robot in action:
Part of what makes this robot unique is that, with its artificial intelligence, it can understand most Japanese conversations, and can increase its language abilities by listening to what consumers say.
"There are no immediate plans for China sales, but SoftBank, Foxconn and Alibaba will possibly cooperate on this front in the future," a company spokeswoman said.
However, if you live in Japan, there will be no wait. Pepper goes on sale in Japan this weekend for 198,000 yen ($1,960), according to CBC News.
Who knew the future could be so cheap?
