while most people have heard of small baby-simulator dolls used to teach people about childcare, they probably haven’t heard of yotaro, a robotic baby simulator with and interactive screen for a face. this strange creation is the result of research at the university of tsukuba in japan, lead by hiroki kunimura. yotaro is an interactive robot that portrays a variety of facial expressions, movements and physiological characteristics all natural to babies. the device reacts to the user through a sophisticated emotion-control system that watches and senses what they are doing and provides an accompanying reaction. that baby can do a variety of things that make it much more sophisticated than the standard baby training dolls, like crying real tears on its 2-d face. for this, its unusual form factor and anime-like face, the yotaro still requires a bit of imagination to see it as a real baby.
http://www.kansei.tsukuba.ac.jp/~uchiyamalab/yotaro
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creepiest thing ever
Scary….
Scary….
For more information on why an item like Yotaro is created and would have success in Japan, read The Anatomy of Dependence ~ Takeo Doi M.D. 🙂
is it just me or do japanese people really like to go out of their way to make incredibly elaborate things that make no sense and have no real purpose? i am totally fascinated by their culture, mostly because i can’t understand it whatsoever.