Technology behind Sony's Qrio: Remembering People, and Talking

The content of this page is taken from the official Sony Qrio website at http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/QRIO/. Unfortunately the page closed at the end of March 2007 - so we saved some of the info before the site was taken down.

Part 1:
Walking Stably

Part 2:
Surviving a Fall Unscathed

Part 3:
Remembering People & Talking

Part 4:
Seeing and Acting

Part 5:
Living with People

We wanted to make QRIO able to communicate as fully as possible with the people it was designed to live with. QRIO can tell people apart from their voices and faces, and remember them. It can also bring the words it hears through conversation to life, and by exchanging voices and movements with its partner create a uniquely entertaining QRIO kind of dialogue.

Detecting and Distinguishing Faces
QRIO knows your face. It's equipped with a camera and the ability to analyze the images it sees. It detects faces and identifies who they are. It can even learn the faces of people it just met.		And it responds to specific people individually, adding to the fun. In the future, it might be employed along with camera-equipped appliances to provide personalized services to people.

Distinguishing Voices
QRIO knows your voice. It can determine who is speaking by analyzing the sounds it hears with its built-in microphones. Call to it, and if it knows you, it will notice you and respond. If it doesn't know you but..		..mistakenly thinks it does, you can teach it your voice and it will remember you. In the future, using this ability it might be able to distinguish people's voices on a mobile phone, for instance.

Recognising Words
QRIO was designed to understand spoken words. The seven microphones in its head identify a person's voice and the direction from which it is speaking, and even pick out the words it says. QRIO can even understand the voices of unidentified speakers.		It knows tens of thousands of words already, but can also learn new ones. This technology is employed widely in machines other than robots (e.g. in car navigation systems).

Dialogue
QRIO can have an entertaining conversation with you. It analyzes the words you speak using its voice recognition technology, and responds in its own words. It will ask what sort of things you like and remember them, getting to know you better all the time.		Since it uses those memories in future conversations with you, the more information it has the more full and natural a conversation you can enjoy. QRIO knows a wide variety of things, and loves to talk about them. As it hears the things you like, it will come to match its conversation to you.

Voice Synthesis and Singing
If you heard QRIO sing a song, would you be surprised? Since we placed great importance on its entertainment value, QRIO can also sing to you in vibrato! We developed a fundamental technology, searching for a clear, simple and easily understandable voice.		Yet beyond the sounds and words it already knows, it can also pronounce new words it learns. It expresses emotion through the quality and intonation of its voice.

Autonomous Behavoir Control Architecture
QRIO recognizes its communication partner using a variety of technologies and acts on its own accord. Unifying these movements is the autonomous behavior control architecture -- a crucial element in an autonomous robot. QRIO adapts its actions to its surrounding environment as it moves and displays emotion.		Additionally, if its movement is interrupted partway through, it can start all over again. By combining a number of these elements, QRIO realizes ever more complex autonomous behavior.

Expressing Emotion
QRIO has its own emotions -- and expresses them in a variety of ways, such as through its movements, actions, sounds or colors. Sometimes, since it has its own emotions, it might not do something you ask it to do. It's all part of the mystery of QRIO.