One of the biggest disappointments in robot design of recent years has been the total lack of two legged walking ones outside of the specialist labs. Sure you can find the Asimo types in research buildings, but the rest of us are relegated to interacting with rolling robots or similar most of the time.
So hooray for NAO, a pint sized, walking talking robo funster. In technical terms he’s called a humanoid robot, even if he is only 58 cm tall. He connects to the local WiFi network, has twin cameras and sensors in his hands, and positively hates being called a he. She can recognize faces, responds to conversation, and the big news is for the first time anyone can buy her.
Now before you rush to open your wallet, we should say that the price of our little friend is not quite at Christmas stocking levels yet. So you’ll need to stump up a cool $7900 for the privilege of owning one. That’s one lucky little girl sitting up there we’re thinking. But, should you own a small oil field near Houston, then this is just the job for your next party bag.