Japan's SoftBank Introduces an Emotion-Detecting Robot
From: Speech Technology Magazine - 11/100/2014

Japanese mobile carrier SoftBank recently introduced a robot named Pepper.
The cooing, gesturing, laser-guided robot moves around freely on wheels much
like other robots. However, the voice-enabled robot can react to heartfelt
emotions as well.

While the robot can't feel emotions, it does have an emotion engine, along
with a cloud-based artificial intelligence system. With this sophisticated
interface, it can read human emotions by analyzing gestures, expressions, and
voice tones. The technology will be able to evolve, learning as it
experiences new things, and can be supplemented by additional apps and
synchronization with cloud-based databases through an Internet connection. As
a result, users will be able to personalize their robots.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.speechtechmag.com/Articles/Editorial/FYI/Overheard-Underheard-Japans-SoftBank-Introduces-an-Emotion-Detecting-Robot-100358.aspx

Links:
Softbank's 'Pepper' robot reads human emotions (video 0:33)
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/softbanks-pepper-robot-reads-human-emotions/3xut557r?cpkey=81d201dd-4f07-4852-8aaa-20a34e84006f%257c%257c%257c%257c

Japanese Phone Company to Sell Personal Robots Next Year (video 2:01)
http://www.kirotv.com/videos/news/japanese-phone-company-to-sell-personal-robots/vCc9W4/