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THE FIRST HUMANOID robot in space made small talk with a Japanese astronaut and said it had no problem with zero gravity on the International Space Station.
Footage released by the robot’s developers today showed Kirobo performing its first mission on the station, talking in Japanese with astronaut Koichi Wakata to test its autonomous conversation functions.
Space
Wakata says he’s glad to meet Kirobo, and asks the robotic companion how it feels about being in a zero-gravity environment.
“I’m used to it now, no problem at all,” Kirobo quips.
(AP Photo)
Kirobo is programmed to process questions and select words from its vocabulary to construct an answer, instead of giving pre-programmed responses to specific questions.
The creator of the robot, Tomotaka Takahashi, said the autonomous functions meant nobody knew how well Kirobo would be able to answer Wakata’s questions.
Though Kirobo had some awkward pauses and Wakata spoke more slowly than usual at times in their chat earlier this month, Takahashi said conversations smoothed out over time.
“Through layers of communication, we were able to observe the initial stages of a relationship begin to develop between a human and a robot, and I think that was our biggest success,” he said.
Space station
Kirobo took off from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center for the International Space Station this summer aboard a space cargo transporter. Wakata arrived in November and will assume command of the station in March.
The project is a joint endeavor between advertising company Dentsu, automaker Toyota, and Takahashi at the University of Tokyo’s Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology.
Experiments with Kirobo will continue until it returns to Earth at the end of 2014.
In the meantime, Kirobo says he wants to ask Santa for a toy rocket this Christmas.
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Good product. Well done to them.
Brilliant good news story. Well done. Great to see you bringing the jobs back to dublin. Don’t be minding the begrudgers!
Ha. A unicorn that’s (last line) “trending aggressively to becoming a profitable company”!
@Adrian: only applies to the definition of its valuation not its profitability
@Adrian: Twitter has been around over 15 years and still hasn’t posted a profit. Profitability in Tech is not as important as in traditional businesses
@ForeverFeel1ng: You’re joking right? Twitter surviving for 15 years without making a profit hints that it’s being kept afloat for other reasons, just like loss making newspapers.
@ForeverFeel1ng: Said no investor ever. Twitter is being kept afloat like a newspaper making losses: it’s a great propaganda and political agitation tool.
Intercom, isn’t that a communication device used in shopping centres. A mic and a speaker. The simple things, eh! Wish I thought of it.
@Paddy O Sullivan: That’s a tannoy.
Very interesting and innovative business model!
Finally, a powerful, scalable, efficient, growth supporting, and cost effective management tool / business platform capable of capturing and pulling together all channels of communications between likely participators in the global marketplace seeking the particular product or service and the firm offering same.
Early days, but with 25,000 customers already contributing $50 mil in annual Revenues, outlook is excellent for Intercom. Tenfold increase in customer base is a distinct possibility, which would comfortably justify existing valuations mentioned. Clearly, with $241 m invested already, someone has lots of faith!
Congratulations to all concerned!
And btw what is it? A messaging service wow, probably a advanced data collection service. That’s were the money is, apparently. Well done Irish guys! You’ve sold your soul for a few bob.
@Paddy O Sullivan: Jesus you’re some begrudger. They’re making money and putting Ireland on the tech map globally. Selling their souls? Would you rather them be on the dole? They’re working.
@Paddy O Sullivan: Close…but no cigar. It is customer service software actually with plenty of uses. Instead of whinging about it familiarise yourself with the company and the software it provides
I’m a bit uncomfortable with these valuations on, thus far, unprofitable companies.
The FAANG companies are already responsible for a huge proportion of market valuations. I hope we’re not heading for another dotcom bubble.
I wouldn’t be investing in them, they are swelled with VC money, $50mil Revenue is peanuts and VC money will need to be paid back sometime. Their product is essentially a chatbox which is tiresome for website visitors and very expensive compared to free alternatives (Drift etc)
They will be bust in a couple of years, big valuation comes with a price… But hopefully they will make a lot of moneys for them self’s.
This is the type of homegrown success and entrepnurial spirit we need to foster.
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