Sony is working on a robot that can 'form an emotional bond' with people

Sony has announced plans to develop a robot "capable of forming an emotional bond with customers." At the company's corporate strategy meeting this morning in Tokyo, CEO Kaz Hirai said that a new robot-focused organization within Sony was established in April and is working towards a business launch. "Sony will seek to propose new business models that integrate hardware and services to provide emotionally compelling experiences," the company says in notes from the presentation; no further details on the robot are available. Japanese telecoms company SoftBank makes similar "emotional" claims about its Pepper robot, while Sony arguably achieved the goal to some extent with its AIBO dogs, which some users have gone as far as to hold funerals for. Elsewhere in the presentation, Hirai highlighted VR as another future area of growth for Sony.