People in Japan will soon be able to verbally communicate with a “palm-sized robot” developed by Toyota when it goes on sale next year. The Kirobo Mini is a 10cm high robot designed to provide companionship, according to Toyota. It has the incredible ability to tailor conversations and include comments about journeys based on vehicle data. Experts told the BBC that while the robot has childlike attributes, it’s not a realistic substitute for a child. “He wobbles a bit, and…

Nissan unveiled the latest in a series of innovations designed to bring the benefits of its Intelligent Mobility blueprint to the daily lives of customers. Following the success of the Intelligent Parking Chair earlier this year, the newly-developed ProPILOT Chair negotiates queues on behalf of its occupant, sparing them the hassle of standing in line. Named after the company’s flagship autonomous driving technology, the ProPILOT Chair detects and automatically follows the chair ahead of it, maintaining a fixed distance and…

Snapchat has moved beyond its application, and has been reorganized into the company Snap Inc. to reflect its expansion into consumer hardware. The company is set to launch its first hardware product: smart ‘Spectacles’ that can shoot first-person video clips that can transfer directly to the Snapchat app. The product will be available through Snap Inc.’s website Spectacles.com. “We’ve created one of the smallest wireless cameras in the world,” the company wrote in a post on its new site Snap.com,…

Traditional robots as we know them are clunky, lifeless, and made of either metal or plastic. For years, engineers have been searching for a way to end this perception, by introducing a robot made from soft materials and that can control itself like a living being. At Harvard University, this dream has become a reality thanks to two scientists who have published a paper in Nature about their charismatic, autonomous, soft-material ‘Octobot’. The Octobot’s creators, Robert Wood and Jennifer Lewis,…

U.S. based food joint Domino’s Pizza which operates around the world, is planning to launch the world’s first commercial drone delivery service after conducting a trial run in New Zealand. The pizza-maker announced that it plans to launch a regular drone delivery service by the end of this year, after conducting a trial in Auckland on Thursday, August 25. The first commercial trial in the world took place in the United States last month on July 23 when convenience store…