JIBO : A Family Robot
For many families, their is no commonly shared device. While companies are focusing on more and more personal devices , the common device factor is getting eradicated.While families have tablets or a all in one as a shared device , but what if it was more interactive ? What if it woke up when you came home, recognized your face, and suggested a couple of things you might want for dinner? What if, when asked a question, it could tailor its answer directly to you, instead of offering a blanket response?
A device called Jibo can do all these things for you. Jibo is not just any device , it is a robot.While this unique start up , is marketing it as the "
world's first family robot". Specifically, Jibo is a social robot. You talk to it, ask it questions,
make requests. It talks back, provides answers, and takes care of grunt
work like setting reminders or scouring the web.It is more like a helper or calling it as a
assistant , much like a physical version of
Google Now or
Siri or even as
Windows Cortana and all the array of digital assistant available on the smartphones and tablets.
How It Works
One of Jibo’s key features is human and facial recognition. Using a
stereo camera system, it can distinguish people from their background
surroundings so it knows when there’s a person in the room. In
particular, it can recognize faces, so it knows
which person
it’s talking to. When it is completely ready , it will also be able to
recognize facial expressions so it can guess your mood and cater its
interactions.
JIbo includes a 360 degree mic array so the robot can
perform sound isolation, identifying when it’s being spoken to even if
the person talking is not right next to it. Dual speakers supply its
voice and other audio. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios keep it connected. A
quad-core ARM processor act as the brains. On its face is a circular LCD
touchscreen, for all the interactions. A 3-axis
motor system allows the top section to spin all the way around on the
base.
Interface & Design
Though Jibo is still in the prototype versions, it's far closer to the actual product. The body is shiny, circular and white. The head is spherical, though a
chunk is cleanly sliced out of it so a flat LCD display can act as its
face.
The head and body can both rotate 360 degrees, so the robot can
rotate to look at whoever is speaking to it, or just swivel and twist
animatedly as it responds and interacts .As for the onscreen user interface, Jibo has character animations. Instead of some sort of app or
list menu as an interface, or a human-like face, Jibo’s screen displays
a simple, white sphere. This ball can morph into other graphical
elements: a clock, an illustration of the weather, a heart, a smile.
It’s designed to be dynamic and easy to read from across the room.
While the prototype is rough around the edges—the LCD is
of low-res, and the robot’s movements are sometimes abrupt .
What it can do
Jibo on your
command can take photos as well as videos. It can pull up information
from the web
or an app, it can act as a teleconferencing device, and it can be used
to queue up books or videos. Jibo uses a mixture of facial and voice
recognition (as well as an iOS and Android app), it personalizes these
experiences for you. You can ask Jibo to order your favorite take-out
meal after arriving home from work. Or tell it
to display an e-book on its face-screen, turning a storybook into an
interactive, theatrical experience for you and your child. It can
recognize and greet you when you get home, or remind you to make an
important phone call in between the day’s errands.Jibo video calling
experience, is far greater , as you can tap on the face to have a
focused conversation with that person.
Jibo is an interesting idea coming out of the increasingly technological advancements.Though it's not perfect , but a great start to a different league of device.We have seen digital assistants quite getting evolve , from the day they were introduced. But the main problem with voice assistants , is that every person has a unique voice tune , so if it does not correctly recognize you kind of struggle with it and get annoyed.Jibo is a far more personalized assistant , it does much of what the software on your devices can already do—learn your preferences, predict your needs and others as well.In all we need products like these, but far more advanced than it is right now.
