SoftBank to Sell Robot in U.S. Stores Within 12 Months will you buy one?

Softbank will start to sell a robot called Pepper in Sprint stores starting in 12 months. Personally, I will buy one. I tend to bu just about all the latest tech I can get my hands on. I like this stuff. Will anyone else buy one?

Billionaire Masayoshi Son will start selling his humanoid robots named “Pepper” at Sprint Corp. (S) stores in the U.S. by next summer, part of SoftBank Corp.’s push to take the technology beyond factory floors.

SoftBank also has received between 300 and 400 inquiries about Pepper from companies in finance, food service and education, Fumihide Tomizawa, chief executive officer of SoftBank Robotics, said yesterday. The 1.2 meter (4 foot) robot dances, makes jokes and estimates human emotions based on expressions. Pepper will go in sale in Japan in February for 198,000 yen ($1,900) while the company hasn’t set a U.S. price.

SoftBank, which paid $22 billion for control of Sprint last year, is investing in robotics as Japan seeks to double the value of domestic production to 2.41 trillion yen by 2020. SoftBank has developed an operating system that controls robots in the same way Google Inc.’s Android software runs smartphones, with the platform open to customization for use in construction, health care and entertainment industries.

www.bloomberg.com...





Nice price point, interesting technology, what's not to like?

Of course, if I get this, I'll have to have a custom shell made to look like Twiki, theyre about the same height

Will I buy one?

No.

It's cool and all, but I don't have a use for it. I have better things to spend my money on.

a reply to: neoholographic

Nah, I think all of us are saving up for the Sexbot.

My kids would never get anything done if we had this. Maybe they can go visit one of yours.
ETA: NOT YOURS AUGUST!!!

No. Pepper won't do at all. I have one of those faces. By the third time the thing said "Bybyots sama, you look sad today", I would be going for the baseball bat.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

You know it!

Although, strap a fleshlight on this things head and...

Cool! Id it walked it would be better.

I should get investors right now and make a version of this that is a store mannequin so that not only can it show off clothing, it can also interact with potential customers. I would be a billionaire. Another version of it could be tailor-made to stand in front of bars, pizza places, other restaurants, schools, maybe even federal buildings, for assisting people. They could also end up being a real job killer for humans. Why pay for health insurance, workers comp, millions in wages when you can buy a $2000 robot?

The things head looks like an old CD player

a reply to: neoholographic

a reply to: neoholographic

Wow if i had the cash i would certainly pick one up

I am not really clear on what it does. It looks cool. If you are really into robots, why not build your own?

It looks a little cheap to me.

Perhaps it is targeted more towards children.


It looks like it would break in 6 weeks.

Seriously.. let me know when they are able to do the chores then I am in.

a reply to: Grimpachi

The Roomba has been around for a while.

a reply to: neoholographic

Seems quite useless. I want housework capabilities - or maybe like AugustusMasonicus' wants, a sexbot. But ego-feeding and "entertainment"? No. Not a chance.

Don't care for its voice. Just something off. If it spoke english maybe would help? I'd prefer a male voice or something androgynous. When I think of a "buddy" I usually think of a male or something inbetween. Females...

EDIT: Ok, so I wrote a negative post saying I thought this was dumb. Now I'm asking myself: Is there something I'm missing? I keep thinking about how people in the past shrugged off certain technologies with lame explanations. Believe it or not, at one time people shrugged off cell phones. But then they became cheap and small and businesses and people EXPECTED it.

I'm thinking there's something we're missing. And it'll hit. Then robots will be useful. Not sure what it'll be. Could be lots of things.

Note I"m talking about robots for the average person. Robots are already commonplace in factory settings. In a local mill, for example, they use them to move around big containers in the storage rooms.

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian
a reply to: Grimpachi

The Roomba has been around for a while.

Yeah I know I have two of them but thats not even close to what I am talking about.

I predict this guy will be going out of buisness Very Soon. WHY? The robot does nothing but run it's mouth, so to speak. It gives me a head ache. Now i might consider the robot if it did the house chores and got me a beer. Can the robot take a guard post outside my home and handle a gun? OH, and do the house chore's too. Do they have an off button to shut the thing up? They should look like the cylons on battlestar galactica and walk around making a wooh,wooh,wooh. with a red scanning eye that goes back and forth. This thing looks like it might start to cry or something. Put a lolly pop in it's mouth and put it in the window, it will replace roger the talking parrot, at least you can shut it off.

a reply to: cloaked4u

They should look like the cylons on battlestar galactica and walk around making a wooh,wooh,wooh. with a red scanning eye that goes back and forth

Cylons had an upgrade since then