Xiaomi unveils humanoid robot prototype
The CyberOne follows the robot dog CyberDog. With the presentation, Xiaomi stands out from Tesla and Elon Musk.
The Chinese electronics group Xiaomi presented a working humanoid robot prototype at a live event on Thursday. The Xiaomi CyberOne is 177 cm tall, weighs 52 kg, is nicknamed “Metal Bro” and also has a zodiac sign: Leo.
“After a quick stroll to center stage, CyberOne Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun gifted him a flower before politely taking a selfie with the man he owes his existence to,” tech blog Engadget wrote of the performance. After that, the robot left the stage “without any drama”. “I was both nervous and excited to be on stage with him. How did you like his performance tonight?” Lei tweeted afterwards.
The CyberOne is the second product to come out of the Xiaomi Robotics Lab. Exactly one year ago, Xiaomi introduced a CyberDog. The robot dog with Nvidia brain can even do back flips. The CyberDog should be able to recognize and accompany people, for example to help with carrying.
Robots for almost 100,000 euros
The humanoid robot now presented has a face in the form of a curved OLED panel, can see the world in 3D, hear with two microphones and recognize 45 types of emotions from human voice expressions, writes Engadget. His body has a total of 21 degrees of movement, which are made possible by 13 joints.
The CyberOne will initially cost between 600,000 and 700,000 yuan (around 86,000 to 100,500 euros), explained Lei. Engadget suspects that it will be a while before Xiaomi considers the robot suitable for mass production, if at all.
Tesla is also developing humanoid robots
Xiaomi has outperformed Tesla with its presentation. Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted an image at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting that purportedly showed humanoid robot Optimus’ hands shaped into a heart. The image hinted that a prototype Optimus could be shown at Tesla’s AI Day #2 on September 30th.
Musk announced Tesla’s robot project at AI Day #1 a year ago. At the time, he had nothing to show for it apart from a concept. Effective in the media, he let a human in a robot costume walk across the stage. Earlier this year, Musk said robots could become more important to Tesla than cars.
(akn)
