The Robot Business Division of Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings, the No. 1 robot company in Korea, has signed an MOU on the robot business with Naver Labs, a research and development corporation of Naver, the largest internet company in Korea. The two companies announced on May 28 that they held an MOU ceremony, with the participation of Yoon Jung-keun, head of the Robot Business Division and Song Chang-hyun, CEO of Naver Labs, at Hyundai Building in Gyeongdong in Seoul. Through this MOU, the two companies will join forces in the development and production of service robots. Hyundai Heavy Industries will take charge of production, sales, quality control, and development of service robots based on its capability to commercialize robots. Naver Labs will be in charge of technology research and development and the development of system and application software for robot production.

Kids like to touch things. Kids like to whack things. This is usually fine when the thing is a toy, but it can be a problem when the thing is a robot. We've written about children beating robots up before, and it seems like it's an inevitability when kids (or even some adults) meet a robot for the first time: They want to see what it can do and how it reacts to things, and that can result in some behaviors and interactions that would be pretty upsetting if they were targeted at something alive. That is to say, sometimes kids are abusive towards robots, especially when there aren't any consequences to the things that they do.

Naver Labs, the research subsidiary of South Korean search giant Naver, has opened the patent and design for its robotic cart, dubbed AIRCART, the company announced. Third-party developers will be able to use an open kit provided by the firm sometime within the first half of next year to create related robotic products, the company said. The kit will have the source code, circuit design board, and user guide for the patents. AIRCART is an electronic cart with physical human-robot interaction technology applied that augments strength. A strength sensor on the handle reads the user's intention and controls power and direction, and the user can then move heavy items with little exertion.