NotCliche

I wouldn’t mind Roll reading for me, though.

Masters of inventions, Japanese people are.

Without a seemingly never-ending flow of innovative robots, the Japanese had invented yet another robot that could probably improve your life in the future. This time round, it’s reading books for you.

This aluminium robot is about 1 meter tall and weights about 25 kilograms is given the name of “Ninomiya”. This robot is  developed by Waseda University’s Information, Production and Systems Research Center, and was unveiled during the 11th June’s robot trade fair in Kitakyushu, where it entertained onlookers by reading fairy tales from a book.

How does the robot works then? Basically, the “eyes” of the robot will read the text that are on the book, and these will be deciphered by the computer that is contained in the robot’s back pack. While the robot does read books aloud, it may seems that it needs a special stand for the book, and the robot’s voice sounds extremely mechanical. Not only that, the robot’s vocabulary seems to be rather limited, with about 2,000 words ranging from kanji, hiragana and katakana.

This robot’s functionality is aimed towards reading books for elderly and children. This robot is expected to be sold to schools as well.

However, the developers are said to be improving this robot. They aim to expand the robot’s vocabulary and to give the robot’s voice more “feeling”.

Via: PinkTentacle.

So, who votes for a collaborative work between Vocaloid and these developers?

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