Pepper, the Emotional Robot, Learns How to Feel Like an American

Pepper is about four feet tall, looks like a person (except for the wheels where its legs should be), and has more emotional intelligence than your average toddler. It uses facial recognition to pick up on sadness or hostility, voice recognition to hear concern…and it's actually pretty good at all that. Over 7,000 Peppers greet guests, answer questions, and play with kids in Japanese homes. And by the end of the year it'll be on sale in the US--but not before software engineers here get a crack at remaking its soul. Softbank Robotics, Pepper's maker, knows that emotional interactions in the US won't look the same as they do in Japan.