Cozmo, is a tiny robot that look similar to the Pixar movie "WALL-E", the robot which developed a personality after years and years of cleaning up garbage on Earth. Cozmo which is created and designed by Anki is just 2.5-inches tall. It looks like a shaped like a miniature bulldozer with a CRT monitor.
It likes meaningful eye contact and heavy lifting. Cozmo is a robot companion designed as a friend. It’s lifelike enough to evoke sympathy. It looks like an ordinary toy robot, but it has been programmed to move, interact, and give emotion like it has feelings. Anki designed Cozmo using a combination of artificial intelligence, image and voice recognition, and animation.
Cozmo gets grumpy when you poked or turned on his back. It will show you through its small OLED screen with two animated eyes, its eyes narrow and it grunts at you. It evolves the more you spend your time with it.
Other emotion that it express are anger, focused, annoyed, surprised, skeptical, bored, scared, sad, happy, or any combination of those emotions. It can also be curious, clever, persistent or playful. It develops a unique personality according to the person it interacts with.
It works using a smartphone app that provides a matching soundtrack to his actions. A camera in his face can identify who is playing with him, and once you type a name into the app, he remembers who you are and will even say your name. It's one of the few words he says out loud. Mostly he communicates with a series of beeps and tones.
Anki is based in San Francisco that is known for its racing game Overdrive.
The robot is for ages 8 and above and cost $180, it will be available in October. You can pre-order now for just $159.99 on their website.
