Now this little guy called Wakamaru may not sound or look like the most appealing robot of all, he looks much like some sort of yellow bug in a dress with no legs to me (ok, sorry that’s abit mean )but what he has been designed to do certainly compensates for his amphibious looks.

Wakamaru, designed by Toshiyuki Kita and developed by Mitsubishi was primarily intended to provide companionship to elderly and disabled people. The robot is yellow, 1m tall and weighs 30 kilograms. Running on a Linux operating system with multiple microprocessors. Wakamaru can connect to the internet, though he has limited speech (in both male and female voices) and speech recognition abilities. His main functions include reminding his owner / user to take medicine on time and calling for help if he suspects something is wrong.

Because of its wide range of capabilities or ‘cleverness’, the Japanese now think that Wakamaru could also be used within retail stores and supermarkets, shopping malls, where he would be a great handy robot to serve and to greet customers etc…

(NEW YORK) Welcome to the future of shopping. Uniqlo is introducing wakamaru, the first robot ever to be featured in a retail store environment, during the second week of September in their SoHo store. The robot, designed by Toshiyuki Kita and developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. gets its name from a famous 12th century warrior. Wakamaru will greet guests, make eye contact, recognize people, have arm movements, lead staff in motivational morning exercises and communicate promotions to customers. “We are very honored that UNIQLO USA and the people of New York City have welcomed wakamaru ” said Ryota Hiura, manager of the wakamaru technical team. “Wakamaru, the crown of our efforts and leading technologies, now needs experience in the real world, which UNIQLO USA will provide. We hope that wakamaru will make many new friends during his stay in New York.”

Check out this video, Wakamaru looks pretty responsive, but the poor little guy looks so sad and desperate to get out of there…

Interested in more technical details? Click here for some official facts…

[via FashionWeekDaily, Wikipedia]