1. transcript
  2. Oh, the wonders of modern robotics

Oh, the wonders of modern robotics

By apalazzo on May 6, 2007.

So apparently I'm a month late on this item.

*** CORRECTION ***

Keepon was developed by Dr. Kozima and Dr. Nakagawa at NICT in Japan (see comments). Marek Michalowski, a robotics student at Carnegie Mellon University, has developed the rhythm recognition, hence his thesis:

the use of rhythm in human-robot social interaction.

Michalowski did not develop the robot per se. Sorry 'bout that.

*** END OF CORRECTION ***

What is Keepon? Here is a taste:

But this robot not only responds to audio stimulation. Watch how it responds to various visual stimuli:

To get a sense of how Keepon works, here is a figure from one of Michalowski's publications, that displays this robot's endoskeleton. Note that his eyes are cameras:

i-6969067c49023de9ff7e342cf3f720a0-keepon.jpg

I guess that this will be on the market at some point soon.

Ref:
M.P. Michalowski, S. Sabanovic, H. Kozima.
A dancing robot for rhythmic social interaction.
Proceedings of HRI 2007, March, 2007

Click here for a list of Michalowski's publications.

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I foresee a great future here for this guy making robotic office lackeys which (who?) will fawn over bosses incessantly -- thereby freeing the worker bees to get some actual work done.

Keepon was developed by Dr. Kozima and Dr. Nakagawa at NICT in Japan about four years ago (http://univ.nict.go.jp/people/xkozima/index-eng.html).

The robot has since gradually come to be used by a couple of other research groups as well, including this guy. But he is not the originator; he did the rhythm recognition application shown at the top (which is cool). The visual behaviors are by Nakagawa with Kozima as part of the initial development.

This little robot reminds me of a Peep. I have that same urge to stick it in a microwave and see what happens.