Yahoo – AFP,
21 Oct 2015
 |
'Pepper'
the humanoid robot communicates with the audience during a demonstration
at
WSJDLive technology conference in Laguna Beach, California, on October 20,
2015 (AFP Photo/Frederic J. Brown)
|
Laguna
Beach (United States) (AFP) - A humanoid robot name Pepper designed as an
upbeat companion made its European debut on Tuesday helping shoppers with wine,
and more, in a major shop in France.
The test
run involves seven robots stationed in different parts of a Claye-Souilly
region Carrefour store, where they are programmed to do things such as suggest
food recipes or wine choices, or assess customer satisfaction, Magali Cubier of
Aldebaran Robotics told AFP.
"The
main focus is to entertain people and to test how they react to seeing a robot
in a shop," Cubier said, standing opposite a pair of Pepper robots giving
hugs and high-fives to attendees at a WSJDLive technology conference on the
Southern California coast.
 |
French
Prime Minister Manuel Valls (L) meets Softbank's humanoid robot 'Pepper',
at
the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo, on
October 5,
2015 (AFP Photo/Toshifumi Kitamura)
|
"It is
the first time we are getting Pepper out of Japan, so we will see the reaction
of users in France."
Aldebaran
has sold 4,000 Pepper robots since they launched in Japan in June. The
Paris-based company is about 98 percent owned by SoftBank Group in Japan.
Aldebaran
sells one batch of 1,000 Pepper robots monthly, with an up-front price of
$1,500 euros and then monthly subscription payments of about $200 euros for
three years, according to Cubier.
Pepper was
billed as a "new species" of robot capable of recognizing basic
emotions such as happiness and sadness by looking at people's faces.
"Faces
mean a lot to me; even more when they are smiling," a Pepper model said
while describing its facial recognition capabilities during a demonstration.
"It is
pretty clever because it keeps me from trying to interact with non-human
things,. For example, those couches never talk back."
 |
Japanese
telecom giant Softbank's humanoid robot Pepper gestures alongside
Tottori
Prefecture Governor Shinji Hirai as they promote watermelon produce at a
shop
in Tokyo, in July 2015 (AFP Photo/Yoshikazu Tsuno)
|
Aldebaran
in September began gathering research that showed people tended either use the
robots as day-to-day home companions or took creative approaches of building in
their own software applications for small business purposes.
Pepper was at
WSJDLive as part of a quest for partners in the hope of expanding to the US
market, according to Cubier.
"We
see robots being more and more present in our daily life to help us; assist us;
entertain us, live with us," she said.
Pepper's
effort to spread to France and beyond comes with the challenge of adapting
robots to different ways emotions are expressed in the world's diverse array of
cultures and places.
For
example, Pepper will shake hands with shoppers in France -- but not greet them
with robotic pecks on cheeks, something Cubier promised to look into.
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