Forget waiting for that Google driverless car to come out, CEO and founder of RobotsLAB, Elad Inbar has already made a robot that can do almost anything for you, including drive you anywhere you want to go. Well, at least if you are a baby. The NAO is a 58-cm tall open-sourced, humanoid robot that will drive a baby car, fetch the paper, get you a beer or even recognize who you are and carry on a conversation.
I first saw this tiny robot driving a baby car around the startup alley floor at Disrupt. What happened next will amaze you (hint: I found the owner and interviewed him):
NAO is making inroads in STEM learning as well. Inbar tells us that NAO is teaching kids about math and physics.
He hinted that this was just the prototype and there could be plans in the future to make a life-size version. NAO is available for commercial purchase at around $8,000, according to Inbar. It doesn’t run for very long before needing a recharge, though. The lithium battery will last about 1.5 hours. Not a ton of time, but these are early days. Inbar says RobotsLAB is working on several improvements.