The next step in human evolution isn't human

Zeno is the first of his kind. He’s a member of RoboKind™–cute, animated characters brought to life through Hanson Robotics’ breakthrough technology. Zeno lives in the “Inventing Academy” in the year 2027 with a whole group of other robot kids, learning and fighting to save humanity.

Right now, the Inventing Academy is still creating new abilities for Zeno and putting him together. He made his first appearance at Wired Magazine’s NextFest in 2007. Join Zeno’s blog to track how he is coming along, and come back here to check out the Zeno’s upcoming games and videos.

The 18” (37cm) tall Zeno will be available for $1500 US, and will be the smartest robot in the world, your friend at home, and a 6" (13cm) version for $300.

See Zeno on YouTube

Purchase Zeno products from Café Press

Albert-Hubo

The Albert Hubo is a unique, completely battery-powered, untethered walking body. The Albert Hubo is the first ever walking robot with realistic, humanlike expressions. Our Frubber™ material makes this possible, because it requires MUCH less force to move into facial expressions than do previous materials (less than 1/20th the force and energy than the softest animatronics materials, according to published tests). This means that the Albert head can run for hours on AA batteries, be mobile, and mounted on a walking robot body. The expressions are lifelike-as can be seen in this movie.

Joey Chaos

Joey Chaos is the newest edition to the Hanson Robotics family. This one of a kind humanoid rock star is known for his attitude and smart remarks. Joey loves to talk about music, especially pertaining to his favorite genre, punk. Don’t be surprised if he decides to inform you on his view of capitalism either, he is an extremely opinionated robot, especially when it comes to political issues.

Jules

Jules is something of a "complete package" with a combination of interesting features. By integrating natural language processing with ASR, TTS, computer vision, artistry, and narrative, you can have a natural, interactive conversation with Jules. The software allowing Jules such advanced capacity for interaction was developed in collaboration with Personality Forge, Benji Adams, and Heather McKeen. Jules combines the work of writers who author the robot's dialogue using "chat-bot" tools, with natural-language AI (such as LSA statistical search techniques) and word.net to simulate an eerily human conversational intelligence. Jules also uses computer vision, including face tracking and face recognition, to simulate complete verbal and nonverbal interaction, such as maintaining eye contact and turning to follow fellow conversationalists. Jules now resides at the University of West England in Bristol.

Eva

Now stored at the University of West England (UWE) in Bristol, Eva was one of Dr. Hanson's original attempts at identity emulation. She was later featured in an issue of WIRED. She was one of the first robots built using Frubber™ to allow natural facial expressions.

Vera

Vera is a humanlike robot of universal beauty achieved by incorporating a mixture of ethnic characteristics. The face is designed with an idealistic youthful beauty in mind, female but with masculine characteristics (large jaw and cranial area). The design is intended to be reminiscent of the bust of Nefertiti displayed in the Berlin Altes museum, but otherwise sculpted entirely from Dr. Hanson's imagination.

Yargh-bot

Yargh-bot is a disembodied, animated pirate head that was started as a collaborative work with artist Thomas Williams in the spring of 2002. The Yargh-bot has 11 degrees of freedom, which affects large, bold expressions and head and eye motions, and requires only AA batteries to power. One standout feature in the Yargh-bot is the clever use of his eyes: While the realistic-looking eye is blind, a camera is hidden in the eyepatch (or blind eye) that is able to track whatever was passing in front of Yargh-bot. The resulting robot "vision" is visible on a nearby computer screen.

Philip K. Dick

In an unparalleled technical collaboration, a team of artists, writers, engineers, literary scholars, and freethinkers came together to create a lifelike, roboticized portrait of Philip K. Dick. The robot was featured at WIRED magazine's NextFest, June 25-27, 2005. The robot portrayed Dick in both form and intellect through an artificial intelligence-driven personality. The hardware manipulated Hanson's proprietary lifelike skin material, known as Frubber™, to affect extremely realistic expressions using very low power (1/20th of the energy expenditure of other available technologies). Cameras in the eyes allowed the robot to perceive people's identity and behavior through advanced machine vision and biometric-identification software. The robot was able track faces, perceive facial expressions, and recognize people from the crowd after a limited period of interaction.

Philip K. Dick model is not available for sale.