During my stay in Japan, with my hubby, we came across twice with the robot "Pepper" as we passed near to the SoftBank's branches.
Pepper is a humanoid robot that was created by Aldebaran Robotics and the SoftBank was designed with the ability to read emotions and analyze expressions and tones of voice.
Pepper is not exactly a functional robot for home use. Instead, the creators claim that the aim is to "make people happy"
But... interestingly this little robot shown have a little more than the ability to read emotions, or maybe he was able to read them too well. After we asked the robot a couple of questions and I confess that we "nag" him a little (ok, I admit perhaps too much), This little one "turned the game" when we asked whether we wanted to know our fortune of the day, of course, we said yes and the "little rascal" responds... "the fortune today is the worst"... dumbfounded we looked at each other and burst out laughing, whether it was deliberate or a mere chance (with a perfect timing) the truth is that it was truly fun to find out this little guy.
In the SoftBank website, they describe it as "a gentle, pleasant and surprising robot," well he is surprised that is for sure and we have tested it in first hand, with a few laughs in the middle and even with some surprise. (https://www.ald.softbankrobotics.com/en/cool-robots/pepper)
If you pass around a "Pepper" robot have a chat with it him and be prepared for a good surprise.
This post was based on my original at http://porutogarujin.blogspot.com/2016/10/pepper-o-robot_26.html