Conversation robot ready for outer space

Humanoid communication robots, Kirobo and Mirata are held by Tomotaka Takahashi, left, CEO of Robo Garage and project associate professor from the University of Tokyo, and Fuminori Kataoka, project general manager from Toyota.

Humanoid communication robots, Kirobo and Mirata are held by Tomotaka Takahashi, left, CEO of Robo Garage and project associate professor from the University of Tokyo, and Fuminori Kataoka, project general manager from Toyota.

Published Jun 27, 2013

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Tokyo - The world's first space conversation experiment between a robot and humans is ready to be launched.

Developers from the Kirobo project, named after “kibo” or hope in Japanese and “robot,” gathered in Tokyo on Wednesday to demonstrate the 34 centimetre tall robot's ability to talk.

They hope robots like Kirobo that can hold conversations will eventually be used to assist astronauts working in space.

When a developer asked Kirobo what its dream was, the robot said it wanted to create a future where humans and robots live together and get along.

Kirobo is scheduled to be launched from the Tanegashima Space Centre on August 4.

The project was jointly run by organisations including Dentsu, the University of Tokyo, and Toyota. - Sapa-AP

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