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January 10, 2020 06:17 pm PST

Very weird faceless robot baby for elderly people

Hiro-chan is a very simple, inexpensive, and, er, faceless robotic baby doll designed to comfort elderly people. (Video below.) Unlike the very similar looking Amish dolls that lack faces for religious reasons, Hiro-chan's developers Vstone say that leaving the features up to the individual's imagination is an effective way to increase the emotional bond. From Evan Ackerman's article at IEEE Spectrum:

Hiro-chans entire existence seems to be based around transitioning from sad to happy in response to hugs. If left alone, Hiro-chans mood will gradually worsen and itll start crying. If you pick it up and hug it, an accelerometer will sense the motion, and Hiro-chans mood will improve until it starts to laugh. This is the extent of the interaction, but youll be glad to know that the robot has access to over 100 utterance variations collected from an actual baby (or babies) to make sure that mood changes are fluid and seamless.

...Since the functionality of the robot depends on you getting it go from sad to happy, Vstone says that giving the robot a face (and a fixed expression) would make that much less convincing and emotionally fulfillingthe robot would have the wrong expression half the time. Instead, the user can listen to Hiro-chans audio cues and imagine a face. Or not. Either way, the Uncanny Valley effect is avoided (as long as you can get over the complete lack of face, which I personally couldnt), and the cost of the robot is kept low since theres no need for actuators or a display.

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Original Link: http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/9N8KREJKrPc/very-weird-faceless-robot-baby.html

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