Cute Penguin Robot Helps You Keep a Lookout On The Road

This is cute!

A new idea from Pioneer, the little penguin-shaped bot is a robotic driving companion that stands on your dashboard and it acts as a blinking, chirping and flapping second set of eyes, thus keeping your drive a little safer.

It has an embedded camera and an advance image recognition ability to remind you that the traffic light has changed when it notices that you had not moved off after it changed for a few seconds. It can remember who is the driver as well, actually providing some sort of security to your car (though I do not think it can lock your ignition or activate your car alarm). It can also alert you if you're swerving off your lane as it can recognise the surroundings.

No word yet on pricing or availability, heck I do not even know if it is in production yet. But, I will be sure to tell you here again if I know more. In the meantime here are more pictures and you can download a Mpeg video (3.6Mb) to see it in action!


Recogising the driver


Internal structure