Home robot?

[Sara Noel]

Home robot can entertain the kids

Markham firm's device can even spy on the kids
By Rachel Ross

Imagine a home security system that can entertain the kids, rent a car, remind you to see the dentist, check your stocks and play chess.

There's a little metal man who's smart enough to do it all.

Created by Dr. Robot Inc. of Markham, this humanoid robot stands just 60 centimetres tall. But he packs a lot of brainpower into his small frame.

Haipeng Xie, chief executive officer of Dr. Robot, described the machine as an "intelligent personal robotic companion."

In patrol mode, the bipedal robot acts as a home security system, scoping out your house for intruders. If the robot's thermal sensors detect a human in the house, the robot can e-mail to the owner or call them on their cell phone.

The robot uses the owner's home computer and Internet connection to answer questions or help a human shop online. All data transmissions between the machines are wireless, so the robot is still free to roam the house.

The robot can also upload everything it hears and sees to the Internet. Say you're staying late at work and want to make sure your kids are doing their homework, Xie said. You can direct the robot around your house, find your kids and check up on them by viewing the robot's video online.

You can even praise your children just by typing a message and sending it to the robot. Hook a microphone up to your work computer and you can even talk to your kids via the robot.

It can also act as a personal digital assistant, reminding the owner of appointments.

Speech recognition software lets the owner control the robot using simple verbal commands. Xie said the software is approximately 80 per cent accurate to begin with, but that improves the more you speak to the robot.

"Day after day, he'll become tuned to your language model," said Xie.

He said the company plans to produce educational content so subscribers could use future versions of the robot as a tutor primed with new lessons each month.

Xie said he could have built the robot far more easily by giving it more legs or using wheels. But he said it was important to make the robot look as human as possible, so people would think it was smart.

"It's hard to convince people that a six-legged robot that looks like a cockroach is actually intelligent," he said.

A human appearance, he said, also encourages more natural communication between robot and master.

Xie has a long history in robotics. While completing his Ph.D. in robotics at University of Western Ontario, he worked for the Canadian Space Agency developing components for the International Space Station.

Working out of his garage, Xie developed early designs for his intelligent robot system. The company was founded in 2001 with funding from two of ATI Technologies Inc.'s co-founders: Lee Lau and Benny Lau. Both are on Dr. Robot's board of directors.

When the first batch of the robots is released next year they'll likely cost between $1,500 and $3,100, Xie said.

That makes Dr. Robot's machine considerably less expensive than Sony Corp.'s humanoid robot. Announced last March, Sony said its SDR-4X humanoid robot will cost as much as a luxury car.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...path=News/News

Someone let me know when it does things I want it to...like dishes, laundry, etc.
Can anyone say Danielle Steel's "The Clone and I"..LMAO I couldn't resist.

Sara

[heaven]

hey will he replace husbands?? I want one. then i can have the whole bed to myself and still have an intellegent conversation. Yah trying to teach that thing with my maine accent, it would bang its self

[rhiana]

This is kinda scarey. How smart is this thing. It seems like it can do an awful lot. And if it's this smart and can upload and download from the computer couldn't it be used by its makers or a hacker to rob your house or your bank accounts or anything else. It could even tell a robber when you're not home and when your getting home so the robber could come at those times. This sounds like it has all kinds of scarey uses for criminals.
(I know I'm being really paranoid today)
Rhiana