Pepper's new job is performing Buddhist funeral ceremonies

Pepper the robot has seen a variety of gainful employment in its relatively short life. It's worked in a mobile phone store, a Pizza Hut and a French train station, but now it seems it's jacking in the corporate world for more spiritual pursuits: Buddhist funerals. At the happily-titled Life Ending Industry Expo in Tokyo, Aldebaran's humanoid'bot could be found clothed in religious robes and chanting sutras in a computerized voice while tapping a drum. Nissei Eco Co., which wrote the chanting software for Pepper, believes the robot could play a pivotal role in funeral ceremonies when priests aren't available, and for a lower price too. A human priest costs around 240,000 yen ($2,200) per funeral, while Pepper is a bargain at just 50,000 yen ($450).