Japan continues to be the center for developments in robotic technology with the introduction of a talking robot that, instead of speaking human languages, pushes people to learn what it is saying.
Hiroshi Ishiguro, director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, showed off the robot at a museum in Tokyo on Tuesday, having given his creation the name "Sota," which stands for "social talker," according to the Associated Press. Sota stands at 11 inches tall, has eyes like buttons and is designed mainly to talk to other robots.
Ishiguro said Sota came from the idea of watching two children talking to each other, in which an adult joining in on this conversation wouldn't expect to be too engaged and would join in just to have fun. Other potential uses for the robot include getting people to pay attention to products on display.
Sota made its debut alongside a similarly-designed robot called CommU, which stands for communication unity, AP reported. Ishiguro says these robots cannot only agree with each other, but can also have different kinds of conversations, even confrontational ones.
A CommU showed its ability to talk in a demonstration on Tuesday, saying "Do you know Denmark?" to another CommU, which replied "I love Denmark," prompting the first one to respond with "I love Denmark, too."
The goal for Sota is to show people that robots have more uses than just cleaning up a person's room, and that people shouldn't expect these machines to understand them so easily, AP reported.
"Voice recognition has always been very difficult for robots," Ishiguro said. "Human beings should instead adjust to what robots can do."
Sota will be available in July for less than 100,000 yen ($850) each, while CommU will be sold for five times the price. Robot maker Vstone plans on selling 3,000 Sotas in the first year. People are suggested to buy two Sotas so they can have two robots talking to each other.
Sota will have several other Japanese robots to contend with in the market, such as Softbank Corp.'s Pepper, a humanoid said to be able to read human emotions. Pepper will go on sale in Japan in February for 198,000 yen ($1,700).
