Toyota pitches tiny talking robot as companion for lonely people

A new robot for lonely people made by Toyota Motor Corp. can do little other than chatter in a high-pitched voice. The 39,800, 10-cm-tall, doll-like Kirobo Mini -- whose name comes from kibo (hope) and robot -- supposedly has the smarts of a 5-year-old. Its value, according to general manager in charge of the project Fuminori Kataoka, is chiefly emotional. It comes equipped with a camera, microphone and Bluetooth, and connects to smartphones installed with a certain app. Ideally, it will turn its head toward the speaker, though that function sometimes fails because its voice recognition ability is far from perfect.