A book-reading robot named Ninomiya-kun is able to read materials placed on a special book stand.
(Book-reading robot)
The robot, developed jointly with the Kitakyushu National College of Technology and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, uses its camera eyes to pick up the written characters. Character recognition software translates the text into spoken words.
Although my children have passed beyond the age at which they enjoyed having me read to them, I still enjoy reading to children, and look forward to reading to my grandchildren. Any robots that try to take my 'job' away from me had better read Philip K. Dick's 1955 short story Nanny and prepare for battle accordingly.
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