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Next Big Thing – emotional robots

The Emotive Robotic Avatar from Hammacher Schlemmer uses 19 concealed motors to express himself

It’s a what?

Shhh… you’ll hurt his feelings. He’ll get angry, embarrassed or sad, or maybe a bit confused. Let’s keep him happy.

Is that it? Five emotions? That’s only four more than Action Man.

Ah, but Action Man didn’t use 19 concealed motors to express himself. The Emotive Robotic Avatar from Hammacher Schlemmer does. Although on some Action Men you could move the eyes to make him look shifty. Even so, our emotional robot has at least three more emotions than your cheap plastic GI Joe rip-off.

So, no moving eyes then?

Actually, our emobot’s eyes light up green or blue to indicate how he’s feeling, his antennae rise and fall and he can move his arms and torso. Plus he talks.

So did Action Man.

I think you’ll find that the Emotive Robotic Avatar’s controls are a bit more involved than pulling a bit of string. He’s puppeteered by a human via the zeitgeist of modern gadgetry – a tablet.

This is starting to sound expensive.

Emotions aren’t cheap, you know? The Emotive Robotic Avatar costs US$65,000. That’s US$13,000 per emotion. When he smiles at you cheekily, it’s not quite priceless, but it’s not far off. You can buy one here. Or keep waiting for your sentient Action Man to come along.

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Profile image of Dan Grabham Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home

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