Researchers from Japan's prestigious Waseda University and the Shanghai Jiaotong University in China have jointly developed a robot capable of reading out stories from printed books.
Called 二宮くん or Ninomiyakun, the aluminum-made robot is 1-meter tall and weighs 25kg. It comes with a built-in camera and a computer that can recognize 2,300 Japanese characters (Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji) commonly known to a Japanese elementary school student. A character recognition software is used to translated text into spoken words, which are produced by a voice synthesizer.
Kamada Seiitirou, the professor who co-developed the robot, told the Yomiuri Shimbun that in future, Ninomiyakun will be enhanced to tell stories with emotions. Listen to the robot here:
If robotic researchers get their way, how will the face of storytelling be changed? There are larger questions to think about here as we inch closer toward technological singularity. What does it mean to be human?
Labels: Japan, robotics, storytelling, technology
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