Hitachi Develops Robot Assistant to Locate People Needing Help

Hitachi Ltd. is offering new competition to SoftBank Group Corp.'s humanoid robot Pepper in the market for robot assistants. Hitachi's Emiew3, revealed last week, can be controlled through centralized software that uses a network camera to detect people in need of help. The system can dispatch the humanoids for assistance. They can travel at 3.7 miles per hour–or about three times the speed of SoftBank's Pepper. The Emiew3 can communicate with humans and answer their questions in four languages, including English and Chinese, the company said.