R.BOT shows off Synergy Swan, a phone- or tablet-powered telepresence robot.
While wandering around the show floor at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair, we had to stop and take a closer peek at these cute-looking robots. Conveniently dubbed the Synergy Swan, this 14kg machine from Russian-based R.BOT (or Quanzhou Future Robot Technology in China) uses an Android device as its face and camera, as well as sending movement commands for its neck (with four degrees of freedom) and wheels (maximum speed about 1.8km/h) via Bluetooth. The Android phone or tablet will obviously be equipped with the appropriate apps for either telepresence or automated interaction with people — the latter can simply be the tablet automatically starting to “talk” or play a video clip when a person smiles at it. Interested? You...