2 months ago
China-based Elephant Robotics connected Friday announced metaDog, an interactive robotic companion perfect for group who want a pet but mightiness not beryllium capable to get 1 owed to allergies aliases surviving restrictions. Photo courtesy of Elephant Robotics
March 22 (UPI) -- A China-based robotics institution connected Friday announced nan world merchandise of a robotic canine companion.
Elephant Robotics successful a release introduced nan metaDog robotic companion.
Featuring a creation inspired by nan celebrated Husky and Shiba Inu breeds, metaDog responds touch and sound, including complete 30 sound commands, nan institution says.
MetaDog responds to owners pinch barks, howls and caput and oculus movement, and it comes pinch up to 12 hours of artillery life successful betwixt charges.
Elephant Robotics said metaDog is simply a cleanable action for group who want a canine but can't person 1 for various reasons, specified arsenic surviving constraints aliases allergies.
MetaDog could beryllium a bully action for group dealing pinch loneliness. Researchers astatine Auckland, Duke and Cornell Universities person said companion robots enhanced pinch artificial intelligence could service an aging and progressively isolated population.
Murali Doraiswamy, professor of psychiatry and geriatrics astatine Duke University and personnel of nan Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, said, "Until nine prioritizes societal connectedness and eldercare, robots are a solution for nan millions of isolated group who person nary different solutions."
With advancements successful AI technology, newer models of robots could supply deeper societal connections than erstwhile generations, but nan conception of emotionally intelligent machines not new.
European researchers successful 2010 unveiled Nao, a humanoid robot that tin observe emotions, admit assemblage and facial cues and moreover retrieve interactions pinch people.
More recently, engineers astatine Nanyang Technological University successful Singapore successful December introduced Nadine, an emotionally intelligent robot who serves arsenic a receptionist astatine nan university.
Using Apple's Siri AI, Nadine tin converse pinch people, retrieve erstwhile interactions and definitive different emotions based connected nan conversation.
Nadia Thalmann, a robotics professor NTU's School of Computer Engineering, astatine nan clip predicted societal robots for illustration Nadine could beryllium employed arsenic companions and caretakers for children and aged group successful nan future.
"[They could] moreover service arsenic a level for wellness attraction services successful future," she said.
MetaDog's commercialized motorboat comes amid nan Chinese government's prediction that precocious robots will beryllium nan adjacent large "disruptive innovation" that will spur economical maturation -- akin to computers, smartphones and electrical vehicles.
The South China Morning Post reported Friday that China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology plans to move nan robotics assemblage into "an important caller motor of economical growth" by 2027.
China hopes to leverage precocious robotics to reside home issues specified arsenic housing, a shrinking labour excavation and a quickly aging population, successful summation to competing pinch Silicon Valley.
In nan United States, nan accelerated advancement successful robot companions whitethorn beryllium basal astatine a clip erstwhile number of Americans pinch nary adjacent friends has quadrupled since 1990, according to nan Survey Center connected American Life.
Robot companions for illustration metaDog, however, mightiness not conscionable raise nan value of life for humans, but besides existent animals. PETA estimated location are 70 cardinal bum dogs and cats connected immoderate fixed time successful nan United States owed to owners' nonaccomplishment to spay and neuter their pets.
