Interest

Long-Awaited Cleaning Robot Mimics Cute Little Sister

Sharp is a Japanese electronics corporation with a long history and generally staid reputation. It therefore came as a surprise to many when it announced that its latest cleaning robot in the Cocorobo line, Premium-na Cocorobo [Imouto ver.] ("Premium Cocorobo [Little Sister version]"), would mimic the cute little sister of your dreams by speaking and singing.

Decorated with an appropriately moe illustration of "Cocorobo-chan" by manga artist Kinusa Shimotsuki (Tonari no Kashiwagi-san, Sora o Tobu, Mittsu no Hōhō.) and voiced by 16-year-old actress Ibuki Kido (Kana in THE IDOLM@STER MOVIE, Nell in Nobunaga the Fool, Chinami in Golden Time), the robot can engage people in conversation. It receives information from a cloud database of voice samples and responds to "a considerable number" of conversation patterns. The finished product can also receive feedback from a monitor and select the lines that are most popular with users. Here's a sample of some of the conversations you can expect to have:

• "You're good at cleaning!"
  "It, it's not like I cleaned to get praise from you or anything!"
• "Tell me about fish."
  "Filefish goes with liver soy sauce as sashimi."
• "What should I eat?"
  "Ummm, omurice is good."

Cocorobo-chan can also talk about the specialties of each of Japan's 47 prefectures. As an Aomori native herself, Kido's favorite is Cocorobo-chan's answer when asked about Aomori Prefecture: "Its specialty is delicious apples~!," spoken in the local Tsugaru accent.

The robot's hobbies are listed as "fishing, chatting and eating," with the aforementioned file fish sashimi in liver soy sauce as her favorite food. Her personality is described as "bright," "energetic," "capricious" and "tsundere" despite the fawning tone of this wakeup song:

Additionally, the robot is equipped with a second persona: that of Cocorobo-chan's pet cat, Cloud-chan. Cloud-chan is a news announcer of sorts. If you ask, "Cloud-chan, is there any news?," it will tell you little stories submitted by users from around Japan via a form on Sharp Cloud Labs' website or Twitter. The news is accompanied with commentary by a team from Sharp. The format is compared to "late night radio, or readers' comments in a magazine." Here's an example:

News from Mrs. M., a housewife from Fukuoka Prefecture. "It seems like my husband doesn't have many friends and just plays games at home all the time. What should I do?" Your husband has a knack for getting along with characters in games. He's not alone, so there's no need to worry.♪

"It might be a niche, but there's definitely news, and as one part of the turn towards 'home appliances you can commune with,' I think the possibilities are great," says Tetsu Ueda, head of Sharp's Cloud Technology Development Center. "We'd like to explore other possibilities besides the 'little sister' character that all users will receive well and snuggle up with."

Sharp may not have much exploration to do. Reaction on Twitter to Cocorobo-chan's announcement this March included suggestions for a big sister version, or a boyfriend version. Over 1,200 applications were received to monitor 11 trial editions. Reaction at a live event featuring Kido was also enthusiastic, with the audience chanting "Sharp! Sharp!" for the first time in the company's history.

Premium-na Cocorobo [Imoutover.] goes on sale November 7 for 148,000 yen (or $1,290). It can only be bought online.

[Via IT Media News; Images from Sharp]