2/22/2005

It is a well-known fact that Japan’s reproductive rate is negative. Meaning Japanese families have one kid or less. The country is aging and while young people are too busy with their studies and jobs, and living in tiny apartments, many older people come home only to find nobody welcoming them. Sure you can buy a chihuahua like many OL (office ladies) do, but then you need to pick up their cute little poo all the time, and their barking might eventually drive you crazy. Or you can get yourself a Near Me or an Aibo, but these virtual pets will never really be family members.

And then comes Wakamaru. Created by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Wakamaru “lives beside you from wakeup time to bed time in harmony with your life.”

According to the promotional website, if Wakamaru finds you in the same room, it comes closer to you and speaks to you. At night, it stands by at its charging station and responds if requested.

Overall, the idea is to have “someone” around, and many features help Wakamaru become an everyday family robot. For example:

• You can give a favorite name and it will recognize it when you call. It uses sound, heat and a camera to find you.
• It identifies two owners registered by face recognition and eight other persons.
• Wakamaru recognizes approximately 10,000 everyday words.
• Based on the information obtained from your daily life pattern or from your contact, it approaches you and provides a topic accordingly.
• Unlike conventional robots operated by human instructions, Wakamaru speaks to you spontaneously.

Wakamaru also stores your daily life schedule and takes autonomous actions accordingly (sleep, wake up, rest room, breakfast, lunch and dinner, etc.).

Wakamaru can also connect to the Internet and allows you to remotely control it and watch over your home, using a mobile phone or personal computer. Plus, you can send him messages via email. During house-sitting sessions, Wakamaru can report to the specified address if it detects a big sound or a moving object.

More importantly, Wakamaru is designed to take care of elderly people, and will react accordingly if no contact (conversation or touch) is made for a certain period of time, or if there is a wide difference between the daily life schedule and the current situation. Same if there is no signal at all (word or touch) from the owner. If it cannot find you or if no response is returned from you when it talks to you, Wakamaru then alerts in a loud voice and if it is not stopped within the specified time, it emails a specified address.

Wakamaru will also ask questions like “Have you taken the medicine?” when the time comes. It also asks questions on the health of the owner and sends the information by email to a preset address.