UPDATED 13:35 EST / JUNE 27 2016

NEWS

Anki’s cutesy Cozmo robot is a smart toy powered by AI

San Francisco-based robotics company Anki has revealed a new toy robot called Cozmo, which combines the cuteness of a Pixar-inspired robot with the power of modern artificial intelligence and computer vision technology.

“We’ve had this promise in science fiction of all the robots that could exist,” Anki CEO and co-founder Boris Sofman said in a video introducing Cozmo. “In reality, what we have are robots that have been used for industrial, military, space and research applications, but very rarely have these technologies reached consumers. There’s been very few application where a robot has really felt like a character that connects with humans around it. For that, you really need artificial intelligence and robotics. That’s been the missing key.”

Anki said that the team that built Cozmo included people from a wide range of technical and artistic fields, including engineers, game designers, animators, and more. This allowed the company to create a robot that is not only cute and lively, but also incredibly smart and interactable. According to Anki, Cozmo is capable of processing more data than all of the Mars Rovers combined, an impressive feat considering the fact that Cozmo fits in the palm of your hand, while the Curiosity rover is over 7 feet tall and weighs nearly two tons.

“All of the technology inside of Cozmo is really there for one reason: to bring the magic of a robotic character to life,” said Anki president and co-founder Hanns Tappeiner.

Cozmo is able to react to faces it recognizes, and Anki said that if you have not played with it for a while, the little robot will actually bump you and ask if you would like to play one of the handful of games it has available.

Cozmo will launch in October and will retail for $179.99, but if you pre-order early, you can pick the little robot up for $159.99.

You can watch the full behind-the-scenes development video for Cozmo below:

Image courtesy of Anki Inc

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