Talk to the head

摘要

The spooky robotic head was watching me. As I passed by, it followed me with its eyes and slowly craned in my direction. Then it spoke, its animated lips moving realistically as it promoted an imminent crowdf unding campaign. When I stood still, it looked me over: its sensors examined my face and counted up my wrinkles. Then, rather annoyingly, it correctly guessed my age. I was interacting with SociBot-Mini, a 60-centimetre-high robot built by Will Jackson and his colleagues at Engineered Arts in Penryn, UK. The model is one of their first generation of robots, already on sale. The company bills it as a futuristic information terminal that people could interact with in a mall, airport or bank, say. And if the Kickstarter campaign is successful, a cheaper, slimmed-down version will follow for home use, as a kind of personal assistant.