Story highlightsPepper, a humanoid robot, designed to be emotionally developedRobot released to cons...

1. 'Emotional' robot sells out in a minute
Story highlightsPepper, a humanoid robot, designed to be emotionally developedRobot released to
consumers on Saturday and sold out within a minuteIt's base price is $1,600, with $200 monthly
data and insurance feesOnly 1,000 models were available for the consumer launch on Saturday in
Japan. The base price was set at ¥198,000 ($1,600) with an additional ¥24,600 ($200) monthly data
and insurance fees.
The world's first emotional robotStanding just under four
feet tall, and weighing 61 pounds, Pepper is designed to
read emotions as well as recognize tones of voice and facial
expressions in order to interact with humans. But most of
all, "he tries to make you happy," Kaname Hayashi,
Softbank's project manager, told CNN last year.
With his array of cameras, touch sensors, accelerometer
and other sensors in his "endocrine-type multi-layer neural
network," Pepper has the ability to read your emotions as
well as develop his own. He isn't a work robot, but more of
an emotional companion for people.
Pepper has his own evolving emotions which "are influenced by people's facial expressions and
words, as well as his surroundings," according to SoftBank. "Pepper is at ease when he is with
people he knows, happy when praised and scared when the lights go down."
Developers admit that the robot may make mistakes, but says Pepper will learn and grow over time
through his own emotional engine and collective wisdom gained through collected cloud data.
Pepper currently has the ability to speak English, French, Japanese and Spanish. In the next few
months, there will be more language releases in its app store, which already has around 200 apps.

2. The business side of PepperTwo days prior to
Peppers initial limited release, SoftBank announced
a new partnership with the Apple manufacturer
Foxconn and the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba,
which each agreed to invest ¥14.5 billion (over $118
million) for 20 percent shares in SoftBank Robotics
Holding. SoftBank envisions Pepper as a first step in
spreading robotics worldwide.
Softbank is willing to sell Pepper at a loss for the
first four years, but expect the robot to bring in
profits by the fifth year and become a major force in
revenues 20 to 30 years in the future. Company
officials stated that they want to keep Pepper affordable, and compared the price of the robot to that
of a pet dog in Japan, according to a press event held last week.
SoftBank also plans to launch "Pepper for Biz" in the fall, making the robot available for businesses
and will announce details in July. Pepper has already been used to sell Nestle coffee machines in
Japanese stores.
Interested in buying your own Pepper robot? SoftBank will be releasing information about additional
sales on their website in July.
http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_technology/~3/Z4Sx8lLVePs/index.html