NEC’s PaPeRo
CeBIT 2006 is a little more than halfway over, and while there hasn’t been an overabundance of interesting news or products coming out of the Hanover, Germany technology show this year, Engadget.com did get a glimpse of NEC’s Partner-Type Personal Robot, PaPeRo.
Uninspired name aside, the 15 inch tall PaPeRo seems like a capable-enough robot. Developed in NEC’s research labs to be both a communication interface and a helper around the home, PaPeRo sports a wide range of switches and sensors. Its state of the art speech and image processing capabilities should cover the communication interface role, but with no arms or hands, I’m wondering how much help it will actually be with your chores.