14 DAY TRIAL // Some years ago, on a winter day in 2011, we brought to you the Nao robot, a small, knee-high robot that would care for you based on your mood at any given moment.
The Nao Robot has just been improved, having gained a longer battery life and a better skill at recognizing emotions. It will take a look at your face and figure out if you are sad, happy, angry or bored, among other things.
The latest Nao robot, called Nao Evolution, also boasts a new quad-microphone array (to better determine the source of sounds), plus updated sonar sensors, for better obstacle spotting and distance understanding. Objects can be “noticed” between 0.39 inches / 10 mm to 10 feet / 3 meters or so.
The dexterity of the Nao's fingers appears to have been boosted as well, while the shoes (or feet) have become less noisy. All in all, Aldebaran's invention (company now owned by Softbank) has been improved all around. On that note, the battery life is of 90 minutes (48.6 watt-hour battery).
The Nao Evolution, like its predecessors, will assist humans with disabilities, both at home and at day care centers, or special fostering homes. Autistic children are among the primary intended beneficiaries. The NAOqi software is what gives the Nao its emotion-recognizing abilities. Softbank is, in a way, using the bot to advertise it, and other robots that use it, like Pepper.