It goes without saying that the modern day computer interface has come a long way from the humble days of the typewriter, and a possible area to explore in the future could be social hardware – the software’s already in place with the likes of Twitter and Facebook. This potential niche could be filled by the SociBot Mini, where it was specially designed to stand at 60cm in height, with a “face” that is made up of transparent plastic. A digital projector will throw an image there, and there are specially design contoured areas for a nose, mouth, and eyes.
Apart from that, the SociBot Mini will also come with its fair share of other hardware such as a depth-sensing camera, so that this camera will be able to keep track of human gestures and facial expressions that it comes into contact with. Upon doing so, there will be an on-board software that enables it to best figure out what that person’s mood is at that point in time, and perhaps make a guess at someone’s age. I suppose an algorithm needs to be written that if it is a female’s age, just minus 5 years from whatever the initial conclusion is to keep your “customers” happy.
Right now, the SociBot Mini has a limited understanding of speech which is not a surprise, while. Rosette, the SociBot’s chatbot software, functions as its conversation bridge.