NEC’s PaPeRo robot has been around since 1997 but recently just made head lines again. Papero is a home robot and its name stands for Partner-type-Personal-Robot. We’re not certain about the details but it sounds like Papero somehow manages to beam itself into your GPS navigation system

For example, when a user in house tells the robot that he is “going to Yokohama on a term,” the robot recognizes that person’s voice and uploads the info to the server via wireless LAN, etc. The server performs an arithmetical operation on the uploaded info in consideration of the dialogue history within the robot and

the user, the knowledge info inputted to the robot, the season, the date, etc.

Then, knowledge on the best route for the user to go to Yokohama on a moment is calculated, and the conclusion is sent to the user’s car navigation system, etc and displayed on the screen. Therefore, the user only has to get in the car and talk to the robot to reach his destination by the best route.

Also, the company added a twist to the car navigation screen by displaying a character resembling PaPeRo on it.

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Original post by Tim Robbins