Wakamaru Robot to be Sold Soon in Japan

Posted Aug 29th, 2005 by Chief Gizmateer

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is set to start selling the Wakamaru personal robot in Japan in September. The child-sized robot is set to be priced at about 1 million yen (approximately US $14,250). In case, you didn’t know, the Wakamaru is 3.3 ft tall, 60 lbs and is meant to function as a house-sitter/caretaker/companion. It knows approximately 10,000 words, can recognize faces, is directly connected to the Internet (wish I was!), and can be hooked up to a cell phone to alert others in the case of a burglary or someone at home in distress. It can even follow voices and movement and can interact with people in a limited way.

Mitsubishi is only planning to sell 100 of these units which incidentally run on Linux. Although I realize this robot does not have anything really resembling true AI (Artificial Intelligence), this really reminds me of I Robot, but in a cool, non-freaky way.