Humanlike Robot Boy Zeno
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Meet Zeno, a 17 inch, 6 pound robot, the ‘brain child’ designed and created by David Henderson in the in the likeness of Henderson’s own 18 month old son. Zeno is the latest development in lifelike robotics. Zeno can’t walk or talk — yet — but he has capabilities to track people and interact with a considerable range of facial expressions.
Zeno at Hanson’s office in Richardson, Texas, Thursday, September 6, 2007.
AP Photo – Tony Gutierrez
Zeno — the robot — is the result of 5 years of Henderson’s work, along with his group of engineers, designers and programmers at his company Hanson Robotics, that creates robotic companions and social robots. The team brought Zeno for a demonstration to a group of students at the Wired NextFest technology conference on Thursday in Los Angeles.
Hanson’s vision for Zeno is to be an interactive learning companion and buddy that can engage in conversation and convey human emotion with a face made from skin-like, patented material he calls ‘frubber’, reports Yahoo News.
“It’s a representation of robotics as a character animation medium, one that is intelligent.” Hanson beams. “It sees you and recognizes your face. It learns your name and can build a relationship with you.”
AP Photo – Tony Gutierrez
David Hanson says his inspiration for Zeno came from the book ‘Supertoys Last All Summer Long by Brian Aldiss — the story of a troubled robot boy whose quest for the love of his flesh-and-blood parents was also the storyline that Steven Spielberg’s film ‘Artificial Intelligence: AI’ was based on.
Zeno is expected to hit the streets within 3 years at a price range between $200 to $300 US.
Hanson currently sells and rents spendy, lifelike robotic heads — an Albert Einstein look-alike, a pirate, and a rocker, complete with spiky hair and sunglasses for tens of thousands of dollars. Hanson says that they can be customized to look like anyone.
Even after receiving a $1.5 million grant from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund last October, the company has yet to break even.
At a recent demonstration, Zeno was barely able stand while connected to a number of PC’s that commanded it to smile, frown, act surprised or wrinkle its nose in anger. Hanson said it could take 15 years before they can construct anything like what we’ve seen in movies.
Hanson feels robotics should be about artistic expression, a creative medium akin to sculpting or painting. But convincing people that robots should look like people instead of robots remains a challenge that experts call the ‘uncanny valley’ theory — humans have a positive psychological reaction to robots that look somewhat humanlike, but robots made to look very realistic come off seeming grotesque instead of comforting.
“Nobody complains that Bernini’s sculptures are too darn real, right? Or that Norman Rockwell’s paintings are too creepy.” Hanson said. “Well, robots can seem real and be loved too. We’re trying to make a new art medium out of robotics.”
AP Photo – Tony Gutierrez
Although Zeno was designed to resemble the TV character Astro Boy, his plastic hair and large eyes were modeled after Henderson’s real son Zeno.
“So by coincidence they’re both Zeno, and in other ways this robot has become more of a portrait sculpturally of the son, although it’s almost coincidence.” said Hanson, who had previously worked as a character sculptor for The Walt Disney Co. “We didn’t consciously sculpt this robot to look like him. It’s the way things filter through the hands of the artist.”
Hanson says one of Zeno’s chief advancements is that its brains aren’t inside the robot, being synched wirelessly to a PC running a version of Massive Software — the same Academy Award-winning code that enabled the amazing battles between humans, orcs and elves in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies.
One of Hanson’s creations include Albert Hubo, a realistic robot in the likeness of Albert Einstein that has appeared on magazine covers and even shook hands with President Bush.
AP Photo – Tony Gutierrez
Hanson has received awards from the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in 2005 and ‘best design’ award at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Triennial last year.
“If the robots become popular I suppose it will pose an identity crisis for my son.” Hanson said. “But I think that the amount of love that he receives will make him feel like an individual no matter what.”
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this robot looks like he just fall out of the movie team america. very nice
Lifelike? It looks like a doll
. No, when it comes to lifelike robots the US is in a lost cause, hehe.
Japan and countries alike are far beyond the level the US is currently on, check out in example these samples on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtuioXKssyA&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbFFs4DHWys&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSR4Dx37n8A&mode=related&search=
And here a sample of a basic conversation with a robot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ-2nY6AwDU&mode=related&search=
They perhaps might not be coming in a price range of 200~300 anytime soon, but definitely interesting to see on what level robotics actually is already and how close we’re getting to seeing true androids taking place in society.
The US will probably never catch up with Japan in this race, Japan has simply such a weird culture, seeing robots in public there is considered as something cool and adored whilst many in Europe and the US see it as something freaky, getting the feeling of being replaced.
Rather than the full body models there’s also already been made high detailed faces which do somewhat have weird expressions still but from a distance are hard to distinguish from human, but in example even dancing partners for those lonely nights.
One thing then again though about Japan is that they made them all female forms with “cute” voices
, so if androids will take over the world it’s suddenly going to be like living in an anime, lol.
Haha, you’re right Hoto, it does
That’s quite impressive Slevi. I’ve actually seen some others in Japan that were quite lifelike. Zeno certainly pales by comparison.
But they still have a ‘doll-like’ appearance to some degree when seeing them in action. They’re a ways away from creating something that’s difficult to detect, but it’s still very remarkable.
Dancing partners? I think I’ll stick with the human kind
“like living in an anime’ … haha, great analogy
quite adorable Deborah……
it’s so endearing that he has used his son as the model……you could say that he robotically cloned his son….
Speaking of clones, maybe there’s hope for me yet to get my very own to dole out some of my workload to
haha Deborah…..
a robotic mini Deb…… too funny…
Hehe, I don’t know if the world is ready for 2 of me
Ain’t that sweet! But it’s wrong! It looks like an expensive useless toy. Kids can’t play with it because of the small parts and adults can’t really take their time to play. I admit it is quite a piece of evolved technology but that’s all.
I think zeno is a great idea. I have a special needs child with no sibling. It’s a companion on demand without prejudice. I would like to pre-order! when does he due out?
I couldn’t have said it better myself, Stacey
It sounds like the perfect little friend for your child.
I did some searching to see what I could find for recent news, and the best I could come up with was a video from BBC which I’ve added. It states that Zeno might hit the streets by around 2010 in around the $300 price range. Another one had stated 2009. Both tidbits of info were dated from around end of march 2008.