One thousand more “Pepper” robots developed by Japanese telecom giant Softbank Corp and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) will be released onto the Japanese market on July 31, Softbank said.
The first batch of robots, released on June 20, sold out within one minute.
Pepper, which can not only read human emotions, but also express feelings of its own according to how people interact with it, is priced at ￥198,000 (US$1,611) per unit.
Photo: Reuters
Softbank said that it can produce about 1,000 robots per month and that there are about 200 related apps available, including those that let Pepper maintain a photographic journal or teach English to children.
Interested buyers can place orders on the firm’s Web site, Softbank said.
The new version of Pepper will be able to memorize and store data on human responses based on cloud computing technology developed by Softbank’s affiliated collective cognitive robot (CoCoRo) unit, SB Corp.
SB is also the world’s first robot dispatch service and it is renting Peppers to companies and local governments in Japan to act as promotional staff for ￥1,500 an hour.
Hon Hai, the flagship subsidiary of Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), together with Softbank and China’s Internet giant Alibaba (阿里巴巴) on June 18 established a joint venture to sell “Pepper” robots worldwide.
In addition, Hon Hai plans to add at least 10,000 industrial robots to its production lines in China next year as it targets 30 percent automation at those factories by 2020, the company has said.
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