Creepy Toshiba prototype robot turns you into real La-Z boy

Posted April 11, 2008 at 01:04 PM by David Gonzales

Section: Gadgets / Other, Lifestyle, Robots/AI

Fancy spending the afternoon talking to your favorite living room devices? Toshiba’s new robot might be able to let you do just that. With a name that’s inspired by the Italian term “Poco a poco,” which means little by little, the Toshiba Apripoco will enable you to wireless communicate with most remote-controlled devices by using simple voice commands. It was designed to learn how you use your devices “little by little,” hence the name. With a little time, it should be able to tell whether you’re turning on the TV or turning up the AC. And will turn on (or off) the corresponding device accordingly.

The concept behind the Apripoco is simple. It’s going to sit there in your living room while you grab your remote and switch your appliances on or off for the first couple of times. For example, let’s say you’re switching channels on TV. After you press the button, Apripoco will ask you (with feeling, presumably), “What are you doing?” And if you respond in kind with, for example “Switching to Channel 4,” it will then try to decipher the signal beamed across the living room by your remote to your TV and save it to memory. So that the next time you want to switch channels to Channel 4, all you have to do is tell Apripoco, and he’d be glad to do it for you.

It seems like a great, if only creepy concept, don’t you think? Unfortunately, Toshiba says they have no intention to make this device available any time soon. Although they do hope to commercialize it one day. And don’t take my word for it, watch Apripoco in action with the video down below. It blew my mind when I first saw it, but you might have a different opinion. So watch it and tell me what you think about it in the comments.