Robot takes on battle of the bulge
Imagine something between a computer game and a pet that helps makes you slim. One inventor did just that and came up with Autom -- a robot that will look dieters in the eye and tell them what they need to hear. Users can have daily conversations with the 38-centimetre-tall (15-inch) robot, which will crunch calories and provide feedback and encouragement on their weight-loss progress. For those who hate manuals -- there isn't one. Switch Autom on and it's ready to go. Its blue eyes open and its head swivels as a computer inside its head allows it to search for a human face in front of it and maintain eye contact. "Hello, I'm Autom! Press one of the buttons below to talk to me," it says in a robotic female voice with an American accent. "I'm ready to get started. Let's keep working together." Users tap their details onto the robot's screen in response to its spoken questions about weight, diet, exercise regime and goals and over time it builds up a knowledge of the dieter's strengths and weaknesses to tailor its questions and advice accordingly. The information is also processed to provide graphs on their progress and habits over time. The brainchild of Cory Kidd, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a doctorate in human-robot interaction, Autom hits the US market later this year, retailing for about 500 dollars. It is a so-called sociable robot, a new generation of robots that adapt their behaviour in order to interact with humans. Autom looks fairly simplistic, with a head and neck attached to a rectangular box-shaped body on two stumpy legs. Its face has no nose and only the hint of a mouth. But the cutting-edge field of human-robot interaction combines insights from the social sciences as well as technology and medicine.
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