Japanese Researchers Help Robots Brush Up Communication Skills

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by Staff Writers
Tokyo (AFP) June 13, 2007
Japanese researchers said Wednesday they had developed a new system that would allow robots to learn their own communication skills and conversation patterns. The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology said the system, which it described as a world first, allows robots to move beyond recognition of only certain nouns to understand even ambiguous phrases.

"Robots would become able to acquire communications abilities that would allow them to appropriately grasp the user's intent and situations by exchanging with the user, as with child development," it said in a statement.

For example, if a robot asks someone if they want a coffee and the person replies "coffee would wake me up", the machine would be able to judge whether the user wishes to stay awake, and thus whether they want the coffee, the institute said.

The government-backed institute conducts basic research, with no immediate plans announced on how to put it to practical use.

Source: Agence France-Presse

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Guessing Robots Predict Their Environments For Better Navigation

West Lafayette IN (SPX) Jun 14, 2007
Engineers at Purdue University are developing robots able to make "educated guesses" about what lies ahead as they traverse unfamiliar surroundings, reducing the amount of time it takes to successfully navigate those environments. The method works by using a new software algorithm that enables a robot to create partial maps as it travels through an environment for the first time. The robot refers to this partial map to predict what lies ahead.

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