An Automotive Intelligence, Cute Robot Car from ZMP

When I saw this photo, I couldn’t help but think that it was cute. After all, it is a car with a cute little robot head on it. I started to have Speed Buggy flashbacks.

As it turns out, this car is part of a serious car robotics platform study by a Tokyo-based robotics company ZMP. Apparently, these people believe that cars of the future will be intelligent vehicles, able to move and interact with each other independently.

The Future Shopping Robot for Shoppers

I’ve seen a lot of robots that were meant to be guides before, such as these little red ones in Santander’s Group City in Madrid. This is the Future Robot who is designed to make a shopper comfortable while shopping.

You will note how this robot has a head that is nothing more than a television set, and its animated likeness doesn’t look like how a human being would interact, at all. There is a video after the jump if you would like to see more of her…it.

You will also notice how that the Future Robot, or FURO, has a screen mounted where its hands (as well as everything between them) are located. I believe that the screen is a touchscreen, so customers can make choices from there.