Video: Fujitsu’s care bear robot in action

Last month, we’ve shown you a teddy bear robot that’s made by Fujitsu and looked pretty cute – on pictures. But now, after seeing a video (embedded below) of the bear actually “communicating” with a human, I’m not so sure anymore if it’s really a good idea to use this to entertain elderly or younger people (the robot’s target group).

The robot can detect the presence of human beings (through a camera in its nose, as seen in the picture below) and reacts when someone touches or speaks to him. It boasts eight touch sensors, 300 different pre-programmed patterns of behavior, speakers, mics, accelerometers, and a total of 12 joints.

The problem is that the Fujitsu robot, in its current form, isn’t really convincing from a technical point of view (judging from the video below, at least). And it’s certainly not as cute as Paro, the baby seal robot, which is already being used in a number of nursing homes in Japan and elsewhere. That one even warmed John’s heart.

Here’s the (relatively) short video showing the bear in action:

Via IT Media [JP]

This post is tagged: accelerometers, Baby, baby seal, Bear, behavior, camera, care bears, cgjapan, form, fujitsu, group, Headline, heart, Human, human beings, idea, isn, Japan, John, joints, jp, month, nose, nursing-homes, paro, picture, point, point of view, presence, problem, robot, Robots, someone, speakers, target, target group, Teddy, Teddy Bear, teddy bears, total, touch, touch sensors, video, View