A new member of the family may soon be born with a cute and bright social family robot named Jibo. The vision of Cynthia Breazeal, director of the Personal Robots Group at MIT Media Lab has just made into reality with the recent official announcement of Jibo, a household social robot. She founded Jibo Inc. to develop the family robot. The idea of humanoid at household might be creepy which ideally Jibo came in handy with a cute 11-incher, 6-pound member of the family.
As a mini-social robotics, Jibo can learn and recognize people around him, giving him the ideal responses from the voices or faces of users that interacts with him. From these stimulus, Jibo can answer conversations and coordinate tasks for family members. The family robot can be a personal photographer, messenger, storyteller, companion and video-chat avatar.
“Jibo doesn’t replace people and human relationships; rather, it is designed to support, complement and extend what we need from others in an affordable, effective and delightful way so that we can succeed, thrive and grow,” according from Breazeal. But this doesn’t mean that Jibo’s artificial intelligence and skillset won’t grow as it matures —-the company plans on improving Jibo’s abilities through software updates and development through JiboAlive SDK program.
Jibo will be available during the Holiday shopping season next year and expected to have a starting price of $499, with preorders requiring a minimum deposit of $99.