Robot tutor Musio makes its retail debut in Japan

A cute, robotic language tutor called Musio, has made it from crowdfunding campaign to full-fledged product with a debut in stores this week in Japan. Priced at JPY 98,000 (about US $900), Musio is now sold online through SoftBank's marketplace and Amazon Japan, and through a handful of brick-and-mortars stores. Musio's parent company, AI venture AKA Study, is the latest startup from Raymond Jung, a co-founder of the massively successful test-prep venture, Hackers Education Group, in South Korea. AKA employs about 50 full-time today, with most in Seoul, and a small office in Santa Monica, Calif. Technically, the company is headquartered in the U.S., but it's not making any consumer electronics for the American market yet.