Robots
Sony has announced it will start developing and selling robots again, a step announced recently, reflecting a commitment to its roots as a consumer-electronics giant, Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai said.
Sony is planning to get back into the robot business with machines capable of forming emotional bonds with humans, the company’s CEO has said.
Speaking at a shareholders meeting in Tokyo this week, Sony chief Kazuo Hirai said the robot will be “capable of forming an emotional bond with customers,” according to Japanese news agency Jiji Press.
“The robots we are developing can have emotional bonds with customers, giving them joy and becoming the objects of love,” Hirai said.
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Sony, which started as a hardware maker, has evolved into a conglomerate that includes units in fields such as financial and network services. However, hardware will remain a core business because devices will always be needed regardless of how the internet space evolves, Mr. Hirai said."The robots we are developing can have emotional bonds with customers, giving them joy and becoming the objects of love."
Sony is not the first company to attempt an “emotional robot,” with fellow Japanese multinational SoftBank touting its best-selling Pepper robot as capable of reading emotions.Sony’s announcement comes ten years after Sony’s last robotics venture—the Aibo robot dog—was abandoned due to poor earnings at the company.
Aibo, which sold for between $500 and $2,500, proved popular in Japan, with some owners going as far as to hold funerals for their robotic pets when they stopped working.
Hirai did not give specific details about Sony’s latest robot plans, instead highlighting other areas of future growth for the technology giant.
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