calloCanadian researchers trying to integrate robots into our lives have come up with a pair of dancing, crying mobile phone ‘bots. The robots, called Callo and Cally, are mobile phones with limbs.

Cally stands about 18cm high and walks, dances and mimics human behavior. Callo stands about 23cm tall, and his face, which is a cell phone display screen, shows human facial expressions when he receives text-messaged emotions. When he receives a smile emoticon, Callo stands on one leg, waves his arms and smiles. If he receives a frown, his shoulders slump and he will cry. If he gets an urgent message, or a really sad one, he’ll wave his arms frantically.

PhD student Ji-Dong Yim and Prof Chris D. Shaw from the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University in Canada have collaborated to create a robot using the combination of Nokia N82 along with components from a Bioloid kit.

Along with an the ability to move in preprogrammed patterns when receiving phone calls from different numbers, robot is also capable to detect human faces using OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision). Robot uses wireless networking, text messaging and other interactive technologies to communicate human emotions. It’s a “simple avatar system” according to Yim.

The robot’s face, which is actually a phone screen, registers text-messaged emotions as human-like facial express.

“When you move your robot, my robot will move the same, and vice versa, so that we can share emotional feelings using ‘physically smart’ robot phones,” he says in an SFU release.

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