SoftBank Corp is all set to commercialize Pepper, the company’s own human like robot developed to staff its cell phone stores.
Pepper is claimed to be the world’s first robot to come with a heart and human like emotions. It will use cloud-based artificial intelligence to study gestures, expressions and human speech tones.
In a press conference held on Thursday, Masayoshi Son, Chief Executive SoftBank, accompanied by Pepper, said the company intends to make the robot, capable of learning and expressing emotions, available for sale in Japan in February next year for around 198,000 yen, or £1,150.
“People describe others as being robots because they have no emotions, no heart. For the first time in human history, we’re giving a robot a heart, emotions,” Son said.
“Our aim is to develop affectionate robots that can make people smile.”
Son also added that two prototypes will be deployed at SoftBank mobile phone stores in Japan to allow customers to interact with the robot from this Friday.
Equipped with technology developed by Aldebaran, a French robotics company in which SoftBank took a stake in 2012, the robot will be manufactured by Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd.
The electronics firm, with its latest move, aims to expand the mobile phone and Internet conglomerate’s technological reach, two people with knowledge of the matter claimed.
According to a trade ministry report published last year, Japan’s overall robotics market is expected to more than triple in value to 2.85 trillion yen by 2020 from about 860 billion yen ($8.38 billion) recorded in 2012.
