Panasonic Desktop “Companion Robot” Reads its Own Stats – Powered by ARM Cortex-A53

And by “desktop” they literally imply navigating around on top of your desk.

This “companion robot” by Panasonic is merely a prototype, unveiled earlier this year at CES in Las Vegas. While not the kind of thing I am likely to use personally, it is an intriguing thing to want to see more of its inside and operation, given its capabilities: voice control, motor control, video projection (presumably with audio, it is after all talking to us!). The power jack on the back appears to receive a standard DC plug but it could also be proprietary (that said, USB is obviously preferred for all ‘desktop’ operations). Still, it’s an intriguing robot; the shape is quite nice, I like the matte white finish, and intriguingly the processor used – ARM Cortex-A53 – is the same CPU used in Pi 3s, so that means there’s already repositories of code proven to run on this processor.