By Evan Hosie
The day when we all own our own personal robot is just around the corner (developers just need to find a way to bring the costs down) but until then we have “Shimi,” the music robot, who uses your iPhone as it’s brain, and becomes your musical companion.
One small drawback…we just need to help fund the project to get her/ him actually built. (Watch the video and you’ll see why we assigned a robot personal pro nouns. Believe me, Shimi has more personality than some of the people we work with.)
Here’s what Guy Hoffman at tovbot , a personal robotics company, had to say about our new favorite robot: “In a way, Shimi started out as an animated character. We worked to nail down his personality and then we transferred that into the robot,” said Guy Hoffman, Chief Technology Officer. “The result is that Shimi doesn’t just play your music, he actually listens to it and enjoys it as much as you do.”
Today the company announced its plan to bring Shimi,appropriately named after the “Shimmy” dance move, to the masses via Kickstarter.
Not only does Shimi function as a speaker dock – and a darned good one at that — Shimi knows and understands music and “learns” what you like. Tap a beat and Shimi will find a song in your library that matches it. Shake your head “no” if you don’t like it and Shimi, always anxious to please, plays something else. Like most robots, Shimi usesadvanced facial and speech recognition algorithms and the learning curve is reportedly surprisingly quick.
And after a short while of learning your musical tastes, Shimi will even recommend new music for you.
Five strategically placed motors allow Shimi to dance to the beat of any song, with a variety of dance moves that fit the specific song and genre and since Shimi always knows where you are in the room , she points the speakers toward you.
Shimi has a target availability of February 2013. Supporters can
preorder today by backing the Kickstarter campaign for any amount and the company hopes to offer Shimi just $149 to the mass market.
To see the Kickstarter campaign click here.
And watch this cute clip below….. somewhere, Isaac Asimov (“I, Robot”) is smiling.
[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE1q_HYiLcU']
What do you think?