Keepon Keepin' On

Many of you may not have seen this yet. It is amazing. It is cute. It is amazingly cute.

Its name is Keepon. It is a very simple robot, but with cameras for eyes, a microphone in its nose, and programming to react to its environment and dance. It is currently being used to study non-verbal play/dance behavior in children. As my wife said, it should be used to study the ability of cute japanese products to suck money out of people's wallets. $30 on ThinkGeek.com and we'd have placed an order already.

This video was put together by Wired, as a promotion for Nextfest, a Wired-sponsored technology fair that has a big robotics push this year. From what i understand, the vast majority (if not all) of Keepon's reactions to the music and people around it are genuine and a result of programming, not pre-scripted.



See the first test/dance video that was posted here.