New robot toy uses ’emotions’ to interact with people

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Combining a bit of movie magic and state of the art technology, a California start-up has unveiled a new type of robot packed with personality.

‘Cozmo’ is an adorable toy robot packed with some serious technology.

The small robot is an interactive buddy that can play puzzle and speed games while using machine learning to get to know its user.

State-of-the-art tech aside, a whole team of Hollywood animators gave Cozmo some personality – think Disney s Wall-E or R2D2 from Star Wars.

“In a movie a lot of things are happening automatically. The technology inside of Cozmo is to take a character like that and really bring him to life in the real world,” said Hans Tappeiner, Co-Founder and President of Anki.

Cozmo’s artificial intelligence program is based on human emotions.

Feelings programmed into the robots digital brain such as happiness, anger and excitement, compete for control of its operating system…as real emotions would in a human brain.

The robot is also equipped with computer vision which allows him to recognise who he’s playing with, along with an array other sensors — all aimed giving Cozmo a clearer picture of its surrounding environment.