Japan’s SoftBank has created an emotion sensing robot called Pepper which it is going to sell starting this week, the company only has plans to build 1,000 units of its humanoid robot in the first production run and depending upon the response that it gets it may or may not decide to produce additional units. Pepper will first go on sale in Japan before it’s made available in other countries across the globe.
The Pepper robot was demoed in stores back in June 2014, it’s capable of responding to emotions such as sadness, joy and anger. It can entertain people by playing songs and even dancing.
A collection of nearly 200 apps for Pepper will be available at launch, additional applications will be unlocked by spending time with Pepper. SoftBank is developing other apps for the robot so the software support is bound to grow in the future.
Switzerland’s Nestlé has already picked up 20 units that will sell coffee in its stores in Japan, the company plans to have Pepper deployed in over 1,000 of its outlets by the end of 2015.
Pepper will be sold for ¥ 1,093,400, that’s around $9,000, this includes the robot, support plan and three year warranty. SoftBank has created a joint venture with Foxconn and Alibaba to manufacture thousands of Pepper units which will later be sold globally.
Filed in . Read more about Pepper and Softbank. Source: softbank.jp