Japanese Baby Robot Teaches Parenting Skills

What giggles when you shake a rattle, cries when you tickle it too much, and stares directly into your soul with a pair of luminous blue eyes? It's Yotaro, a Japanese robot programmed to be just as cranky as a real baby. Yotaro's creators hope the robot will teach young people the joys of parenthood and that the gigantic head made of soft translucent silicon and backlit by a projector won't be too terrifying to look at late at night. "Yotaro is a robot with which you can experience physical contact just like with a real baby and reproduce the same feelings," said Hiroki Kunimura of Tsukuba University's robotics and behavioral sciences lab north of Tokyo.

Did they do any market research?

[Locke2005]

Why all this work on a robotic simulation of a baby, when the real demand is for a robotic simulation of a girl about 16 years older?

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[OrangeMonkey11]

I think the real idea behind this is the Japanese government wants to encourage it's citizens to have more babies; in recent years Japan have been suffering from consistent yearly declining birth rates.

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[Locke2005]

If it really is just as cranky as a real baby, without the psychological reward that comes from holding a real, tiny human being, I would think it would act more as an encouragement to fastidiously use birth control!

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[new death barbie]

Don't be silly, the Japanese public has been waiting for this latest generation of Tamagotchi for a long time!

Hold the baby next to your friend's baby, and compare scores for longest giggle time and most contented baby. An adapter is available so organic babies can play, too!

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[Locke2005]

I prefer to toss them up in the air and compete for longest air time. However, I recommend not doing this right after they've just been fed!

Intuitively revolting.

[Securityemo]

Personally, i find things that simulate a "person" which you are supposed to use your "real emotions" towards without having an actual person inside, such as datings sims or even games with dating minigames when the player "is the character", abhorrent to the point of nausea. I can't be the only one feeling this?