'Jetsons' Robot Finally Arrives: Sweater-Wearing Neo Gamma Android Helps With Household Chores
upstart writes:
A Norwegian robotics firm has unveiled a knitted-nylon-covered humanoid robot designed to complete household chores.
"Neo Gamma," built by robotics company 1X, is a bipedal android equipped to perform everyday tasks such as vacuuming, tidying clothes and making coffee.
In a promotional video released Feb 21. On YouTube, the machine is shown serving tea, fixing a wonky picture frame, carrying laundry, hoovering, wiping windows and collecting groceries, before taking a seat as its human owners eat.
Although the company has said the humanoid robot is not ready to go on sale to the public, they claim the new model has been made available for limited testing in some homes. This will enable engineers to test the robot's navigational, speech and body language artificial intelligence (AI) features. These capabilities are being developed in-house, although ChatGPT developer OpenAI was an early investor.
"There is a not-so-distant future where we all have our own robot helper at home, like Rosey the Robot or Baymax," Bernt Bornich, the CEO of 1X, said in a statement. "But for humanoid robots to truly integrate into everyday life, they must be developed alongside humans, not in isolation."
"The home provides real-world context and the diversity of data needed for humanoids to grow in intelligence and autonomy. It also teaches them the nuances of human life - how to open the door for the elderly, move carefully around pets, or adapt to the unpredictability of the surrounding world," Bornich said.
[...] Its multi-joined hands use elastic motors that mimic human tendons, and it has four microphones and a speaker system integrated into its body to communicate with humans. Its knitted exterior was designed to reduce the force of potential impacts with the exterior environment and increase its overall safety.
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