Japanese mobile carrier Softbank said Tuesday it will incorporate artificial intelligence technology from IBM into its empathetic robot Pepper that goes on sale in Japan this month. The AI engine “Watson” is already used in health care, travel and insurance services in English, but an adaptation was needed to make…
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Computers are learning to read emotion, and the business world can’t wait. Three years ago, archivists at A.T. & T. stumbled upon a rare fragment of computer history: a short film that Jim Henson produced for Ma Bell, in 1963. Henson had been hired to make the film for a…
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Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has developed a lifelike communication android that can move its arms and hands smoothly and use Japanese sign language. The android is a prototype that the company will continue to develop towards achieving a service robot able to assist people in the fields of…
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A lifelike baby girl projected on the screen looks wonderingly, her large eyes focused on the man facing her. When he smiles, she does too, although it’s not clear why she’s imitating him. The virtual infant dubbed Baby X is a brainchild of Mark Sagar, director of the Laboratory for…
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Humans are social animals, and feelings of attachment, connection and empathy are the glue that binds societies together. Before an infant’s immune system is fully operational, before a baby can even use its hands, it recognizes its parents’ voices, responds uniquely to human faces and even, incredibly, smiles back. Yet,…
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In addition to the promise of flying cars and jetpacks, science fiction has taught us that we should have artificial intelligence by now. Sadly, the best we can do is a virtual 13-year-old that was able to fool a number of high-profile researchers (and Robert Llewellyn who played a robot…
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If you’re a helicopter parent in the market for a nanny and you think Mary Poppins is too “edgy” and “aggressive,” a Japanese telecommunications company has just the solution for you. They’ve just announced the launch of Pepper, an adorable automaton who’s being touted as a “personal robot who reads…
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Computers are already faster than us, more efficient, and can do our jobs better. One of the biggest remaining barriers preventing man and machine from melding together into a new race of cyborgs is that humans can understand and express emotion, and computers can’t. Except that barrier’s being broken down too. Scientists…
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“All learning has an emotional base.” Plato The ability to express and control our own emotions is important, but so is our ability to understand, interpret, and respond to the emotions of others. Imagine a world where you couldn’t understand when a friend was feeling sad or when a co-worker…
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The University of California, San Diego and Emotient, the leading provider of facial expression recognition data and analysis, announced publication of a joint study by two Emotient co-founders affiliated with UC San Diego, together with researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia State University. The study demonstrates that a real-time…
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