At the Computer Human Interaction conference in Atlanta (12/5/2010), Simon the Robot demonstrated he has more capabilities than before. Originally he was only able to move some blocks very slowly, now he is capable of learning household chores without commanding him all over again or having to pre program him with a set of tasks. For example, Simon identifies colourful items: a blue book, a green plastic case, a red flower and several others, and puts them into the corresponding colours bin.
Andreaz Thomaz (Georgia Institute of Technology researcher and creator) said “we’re interested in machine learning algorithms where you don’t need to necessarily be an expert in machine learning to interact.” Any basic computer system such as Linux, Apple or Windows is compatible to Simon and they have used “OpenCV and lots of off-the-shelf things for speech recognition.” She said that Simon does “blob detection, facial recognition and sound localization”. And just in case Simon goes haywire, there’s a large red button next to him to turn him off.
At this stage, there are no plans for commercialization.
Thanks for the tip Heini (Mirabeau).
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/14/simon-the-robot-gets-upgraded-with-voice-and-face-recognition-s/
