Just like the anime version, only less deadly and more adorable
Here’s a neat little toy from hardware developer Cerevo, a 1/8-scale model of the Tachikoma, the quadrupedal AI-enabled robot from the sci-fi anime Ghost in the Shell. Cerevo plans to ship the toy later in June.
The Tachikoma model features electronically movable parts and is equipped with 21 motors for mobility. It is able to move autonomously depending on prompts from its user. The model can move its legs, arms, pod, sensors and miscellaneous parts. Owners can also use a smartphone app to control their Tachikoma’s movements and use commands to influence the behavior of their quadruped mech.
The Tachikoma’s anime voice actor also pitched in the creation of the smart toy, making around 600 voice recordings for the project. Combined with voice recognition software and voice synthesis engines, the toy can recognize speech patterns and make appropriate responses based on user input.
In the source material, the Tachikoma robots have the ability to synchronize with each other, and they do this procedure every night. They end up with the same memories afterward. The smart toy Tachikoma has something similar to this feature in the form of cloud synchronization. Models can connect to a cloud service via WiFi to upload data collected from its users, which will then be shared to all cloud-connected Tachikomas later on. Sounds useful and creepy at the same time, really.
Interested Tachikoma owners will be charged around $1.5K to $2.0K (~Php 76K to Php 101K) for each robot depending on the version of the unit. Japanese and English language models are available options as well.
