14 DAY TRIAL // A drunk Japanese man apparently kicked the famous Pepper emotion-reading robot in a fit of rage and got himself arrested.
Even though the first impression might be that it got annoyed on the robot itself, the 60-year-old Kiichi Ishikawa seems to have had a quarrel with the store clerk at a SoftBank Corp store, one of Japan's mobile phone and telecommunications companies, so instead of hitting the clerk, he took it on the robot, slightly damaging it.
The robots, known as Peppers are designed by Aldebaran, a company that specializes in robotic toys, for SoftBank in order to have the robots greet clients and newcomers in their stores. It can analyze your facial expressions, body language and the words you use to recognize five basic emotions: joy, surprise, anger, doubt and sadness. He can then respond by adapting to your mood, by trying to cheer you up by playing a favorite song or telling a joke.
Although initially created for home use, to entertain kids, it ended up entertaining adults, which as is the present case doesn't always end up well. Each Pepper robot costs about $1,600 (€1436) so it's pretty hefty sum of money thrown out in just one kick.
Japan Times say that except the robot who got slightly damaged and moves a bit slower no one was hurt.
