Humanoid Pepper Robot Pauses

 Saw this demonstrated shortly after its creation.   An example of a humanoid robot we thought of using in the retail aisle.  Saw it demonstrated in Japan. Mostly being used for eldercare applications.   Appropriately as part of a smart home.   Appropriately friendly.  Will it be back?

Humanoid Robot Pepper Pauses Production

ERIC HAL SCHWARTZ in Voicebot.ai

The humanoid robot named Pepper has been semi-retired by SoftBank, at least for now. The Japanese corporation has decided to pause production until they see a need for more, even as interest in virtual humans and robot assistants has mushroomed over the last couple of years.

PEPPER POP

Softbank began manufacturing Pepper back in 2014, but only ever made 27,000, according to Reuters. The $1,790 robot requires a $360 a month subscription to function, which might have been considered too high a price for the educational and research facilities most interested in Pepper and its emotion-reading AI. The four-foot 62-pound robot did make plenty of other appearances for other purposes, however. Pepper promoted AI in education by testifying to a British parliamentary select committee and served as a greeter at the HSBC bank in New York and both the Munich and Montreal airports. Several Pepper robots even substituted as cheerleaders for a baseball game last summer during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Though Pepper appeared to be autonomous, the robot was often controlled remotely, implying that the AI was smarter and more functional than in reality.

ROBOTIC CARE

The pause on Pepper and its limitations haven’t dampened interest in the idea of mobile, AI-enabled helpers. Healthcare in particular has a lot of opportunities for combinations of robotic bodies and advanced virtual assistants. They vary in detail, but all tend to offer communications and caregiving in some form. Their bodies include the scooter mixed with a tablet computer named temi, which follows owners about the home, and the cat-faced Mylo from CR Robotics, designed to be a friendly, comforting image for people with Alzheimer’s to interact with on a daily basis. For a more explicitly humanoid robot, Singularity Studio and Hanson Robotics created Grace, which looks like the head and upper torso of a woman and can converse with users about a range of subjects, particularly physical and mental health. ... '

Softbank Pepper Sales Robot

A relook at the SoftBank humanoid Pepper robot.   Seems the test they mention that showed increases in sales is far too short, and could have largely been driven by publicized novelty.   In Recode:

SoftBank’s humanoid robot Pepper is improving sales at brick-and-mortar stores
Turns out people like to shop with robots.    By April Glaser

SoftBank, the Japanese company recently in the news for a meeting between its CEO and Donald Trump and its promise to invest $50 billion into U.S. tech companies, has been working to bring its humanoid robot Pepper to American markets for the past year.

And after launching a few pilots with Pepper helping customers in California retail stores in 2016, SoftBank says the robot actually pays off.

In one pilot at B8ta, a tech retail shop in Palo Alto where Pepper worked customer service for a week-long stint last August, SoftBank says the store clocked a 70 percent increase in foot traffic. At another pilot at a B8ta in Santa Monica in December, the store reported a 13 percent increase in revenue and a six-fold increase in sales of a featured product, according to SoftBank. ... "

SoftBank says there are already over 10,000 Pepper robots in use around the world, including at a Pizza Hut in Singapore, on cruise ships and even in homes across Japan. ....  " 

List of personal assistants examined