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HolidayBuyer's Guide

Aldebaran's Nao robot gets more lifelike

Faster processing and better speech recognition make this humanoid robot out of France suited to work with autistic children.

Aldebaran Robotics





"With NAO Next Gen coming of age, we shall be able to make it serve organizations that care for autistic children and those losing their autonomy," Aldebaran Chairman Bruno Maisonnier was quoted as saying in a release.


Indeed, as seen in the promo vid below, Nao can walk faster. It also has an inertial sensor that can tell it to protect itself when falling and a text-to-speech function for eight languages, as well as four microphones, IR sensors, and Wi-Fi connectivity.

Nao can be programmed in a relatively simple fashion with Choregraphe, a GUI and behavior library developed by Aldebaran. It hasn't set a price yet, but other editions have sold to researchers for upward of $14,600.

Adebaran says it has already sold some 2,000 Nao robots worldwide and they're used by hundreds of labs. Nao has its own league in the RoboCup robot soccer tournament, where it's a standard platform.

We're still hoping it becomes a consumer toy with a significantly lower price tag.