Video: The iida Polaris is a cool mix between robot and phone

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Dr. Serkan Toto currently works as the first and only Asia-based writer for the TechCrunch network, mainly covering Japan-related technology and web companies for TechCrunch, CrunchGear and MobileCrunch. Serkan also works full-time as an independent web and mobile industry consultant with a focus on the Japanese market. He is sept-lingual, holds an MBA and is a PhD in economics. Serkan... → Learn More

polaris_iida

Japan is the nation of robots. Everybody knows that. It’s also the nation of cell phones. So why not mix robots and cell phones? That’s what the country’s second biggest mobile phone provider KDDI au thought and today presents the iida Polaris, a robotic cell phone [link in English], for the first time (click here for my iida concept photo report from April).

Truth be told, the Polaris looks more like a cell phone installed in a dock and it’s just a concept, but it’s pretty and makes more sense than Sony’s Rolly. The idea is to offer some kind of life recorder that monitors your health, by processing diet data, keeping a record of your physical activity, giving tips on when and what to eat etc. KDDI au has been jointly developed with another company called Flower Robotics (which recently gave us the mannequin robot).

polaris_au

And it does that in a supposedly “intelligent” way, meaning the Polaris “learns” over time and is able to adjust to your personal lifestyle.

Watch the (pretty cool) video embedded below to get an idea how this is supposed to work one day in the future. I want this thing to fly next to me when I leave the house.

http://blip.tv/play/grExgZ7cHwI

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