#Vector robot anki how to#
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#Vector robot anki software#

“You could go the other extreme where he’s doing the R2-D2 thing where it’s a bunch of beeps and boops and the robot’s expressive, but he’s not really able to communicate the same extent of information. “We want to be able to ask the robot natural-language questions, and we could certainly on one extreme have a super-clear, text-to-speech voice, but at the same time that doesn’t really fit the idea of a small robot character,” said Palatucci. He really needs to use his sensors, his vision system, and his microphone to understand the context of what’s going on, so he knows when you want to interact, and more importantly, when you don’t.” A robotic voice, not a disembodied humanĪnother design decision the company made was around its voice, which sounds more machine-like and robotic than something you’d hear from Alexa, Cortana, or Siri. “So if the lights go off and it’s on your nightstand and he starts snoring, it’s not going to work. “We don’t want a person to ever turn this robot off,” Palatucci said. If it’s raining when you ask Vector about the weather, a rainy animation appears on its display.

#Vector robot anki how to#

However, the company is also thinking about how to make sure that Vector doesn’t show too much personality, where it ends up causing a lot of commotion or distracting members of the family.

The ability to play games with the Cube accessory, and even “dancing to the beat” of music that the robot hears.Other tasks include things like setting a timer for cooking, and intelligently framing a photo by recognizing the faces of the people in the shot. The ability to respond to simple tasks – for example, when you ask Vector the weather, the robot will respond with an animation on its display.Responding to human touch through a capacitive touch sensor on its back.A high-resolution color IPS display that includes about 1,000 animations so it can react to the environment.To that end, Vector includes a bunch of personality features, including: “There are two big pillars to the robot – we’re trying to bring the fun, friendly home companion, but at the same time, taking a really big step to show that these robots can do something very useful.” “A huge amount of the work we’ve done is thinking about how we bring this character to life such that you never want to turn him off, and that a year later, he could still be running and still be fun,” said Palatucci. Vector’s primary function is to be a robot companion, where users can set it up once and have it live in the home 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “These assistants have no emotion, they have no character, they’re stuck in a cylindrical, static device.” “With this whole movement in terms of virtual assistants, it’s very easy to see that we’re barely scratching the surface,” said Mark Palatucci, an Anki co-founder and head of the company’s cloud AI and data science group. Mark Palatucci, Anki co-founder and head of Cloud AI and Data Science.

#Vector robot anki software#

Vector features almost 700 parts in its tiny frame, but the company said its real selling point is not the hardware, but the software and character personality that’s being offered.

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Wi-Fi connectivity that connects to the cloud for over-the-air updates, so users don’t need to manually update the robot’s system.

Security features that minimize data collection for privacy – the company said it does not store voice or audio in the cloud.

Four “cliff sensors,” infrared emitters located under the robot, prevent it from falling off counters or tables.

The ability to recognize when his battery is running low – the robot can locate and roll back to a charger.

A four-microphone array that lets it hear and detect commands from humans around the home via the command, “Hey, Vector.”.An HD camera with 120-degree field of view that lets the robot see the world around it, recognize people, and learn the names of the people it sees.A Qualcomm Technologies platform that provides connectivity, computing, camera, and on-device artificial intelligence.However, lots of technology is packed into the small robot, including: 6, will offer backers early access to the software development kit alpha, launching this winter, and also enrollment in the Vector Insiders Club, which the company said will “help shape the future development roadmap for Vector.”Īnki describes Vector as the “big brother to Cozmo,” featuring a similar design – it looks like a tiny bulldozer. The Kickstarter campaign, which ends on Sept. 9 delivery, with general availability in retail stores on Oct. The “home robot with personality” will be available for preorder today via Kickstarter ($199) for Oct. Consumer robotics company Anki, which developed the popular Cozmo educational robot toy and the Drive and Overdrive racing sets, today launched Vector, an autonomous home robot that acts like a cross between a virtual home assistant and a robotic pet.