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Japan’s largest automaker Toyota will begin selling a 10-centimeter-tall (4 inch) talking robot called Kirobo Mini across Japan in early 2017. This Robot is Priced at around $390, and it is small enough to fit into a car cupholder.Toyota is billing Kirobo as capable of responding to human emotions while engaging in conversation and moving its head and hands.Toyota will position Kirobo as a communication partner developed for companionship just as surveys of Japanese consumers show a declining affinity for automobiles. One poll by Japan’s automakers association released in April found about 30 percent of respondents under age 30 had no interest in cars at all.Kirobo Mini is a miniature communication partner developed to provide companionship. It fits in the palm of the hand and is only 10cm high when seated. It turns its head toward the person speaking and engages in casual conversation while moving its head and hands. Its compact size means it can be taken just about anywhere, helping it to fulfill its role as a cuddly companion always on hand for heart-touching communication.

MIT researchers and their colleagues are designing an imaging system that can read Closed Books using TeraHertz Radiation.In the latest issue of Nature Communications, the researchers describe a prototype of the system, which they tested on a stack of papers, each with one letter printed on it. The system was able to correctly identify the letters on the top nine sheets.This new imaging system will be useful for reading the antique books in Museums without touching them, and it could be used to analyze any materials organized in thin layers, such as coatings on machine parts or pharmaceuticals.

We learn a lot about objects by manipulating them: poking, pushing, prodding, and then seeing how they react.We obviously can’t do that with videos — just try touching that cat video on your phone and see what happens. But is it crazy to think that we could take that video and simulate how the cat moves, without ever interacting with the real one?Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have recently done just that, developing an imaging technique called Interactive Dynamic Video (IDV) that lets you reach in and “touch” objects in videos. Using traditional cameras and algorithms, IDV looks at the tiny, almost invisible vibrations of an object to create video simulations that users can virtually interact with.The researcher Abe Davis says that IDV has many possible uses, from filmmakers producing new kinds of visual effects to architects determining if buildings are structurally sound. For example, he shows that, in contrast to how the popular Pokemon Go app can drop virtual characters into real-world environments, IDV can go a step beyond that by actually enabling virtual objects (including Pokemon) to interact with their environments in specific, realistic ways, like bouncing off the leaves of a nearby bush.