Robots, smart content and the Amazon Echo juggernaut

The South By Southwest (SXSW) festival is a whirlwind best described as "trying to drink from a firehose". There is so much happening at any one moment you have a real fear of missing out. Even though this was my third visit, the challenge of navigating the schedule to ensure you find the gems while making time to meet some of the most brilliant minds in tech, digital and content creation can be overwhelming. Robotics is moving at a rapid pace but still the sheer oddness and impracticality of what I saw was at times astounding. The best example for me was presented by Japanese Communication giant NTTS's Dr Higashinaka and roboticist Dr Ishiguro who have built life-sized robotic humanoid models that can have basic conversations with humans.