Toyota is getting ready to sell a $400 robot that talks, but is otherwise completely useless

Automaker Toyota Motor Corp. is planning to release a four-inch-tall humanoid communication robot called Kirobo Mini. Besides speaking in a high-pitched voice, there’s not much else the bot can do.

It will retail for $390.

Kirobo will come outfitted with a camera, microphone, and Bluetooth components. It connects to the user’s smartphone, which needs to be installed via software application. Fuminori Kataoka, the project’s general manager, says the technology’s value is emotional, and that he anticipates its owners will go from home to car to the outdoors with this tiny companion in tow. 

“Toyota has been making cars that have a lot of valuable uses. But this time we're just pushing emotional value,” Kataoka said.

When spoken to, the bot will turn its head to address the speaker; however, it does not have face recognition technology. As such it cannot differentiate between speakers. In short, it’s basically an Amazon Echo — but cuter. 

To be fair, the folks at Toyota are aware of just how useless this robot will be to its future owners.

“This is not smart enough to be called artificial intelligence,” Kataoka said. “This is about the existence of something you can talk to. A stuffed animal might not answer back, but people do talk to it, like my daughter once did this. But if it talked back, wouldn't that be better? And isn't this better than talking to a box?”

Proponents of this type of technology suggest it could serve as a tool when taking care of the sick or elderly. 

As to whether it takes off, that remains to be seen. The one thing that can be determined is that there is a market for this sort of technology. Japanese technology/telecom company Softbank Corp. began selling its $2,000 robot “Pepper” just last year. The first batch of 1,000 bots sold out immediately; to date, 10,000 have been sold in Japan. 

Toyota has declined to say how many Kirobos it will ready for preorder, or how many it hopes to sell in the first year. The only two things it has stated are that preorders will officially begin later this year, and that shipments of the bot are set for next year.

Via Phys.org