 We're here at Anki to check out their new Cosmo, a fun and highly interactive little robot that functions both as a toy and a pet. Heard that before and been disappointed? I think you'll be pleasantly surprised this time as they didn't just use a team of highly skilled engineers, but they also worked with people that used to work at DreamWorks and Pixar to do the animations and game design. This creates a dynamic combination of artificial intelligence, interactive content, animatronics, along with vision and sensing technologies that create not just an awesome robot, but a personality or a character. Now, let's go meet Cosmo. This is Cosmo, and he's not perfect, but he isn't intended to be. He's designed after a flawed but lovable little hero. R2-D2 and BB-8 aren't the most advanced droids in the Star Wars universe, but you love them because they have character, like Cosmo. Cosmo can detect who you are and greet you like this. And he has emotions like confidence, excitement, happiness, bravery, and more. Sometimes he will fail, and he will complain about that. Or you'll be playing a game with him and he will respond happily or sadly, depending on if he is winning or losing. He gets surprised when he encounters new people or objects or even the ever dreaded table ledge. He feels real. It's kind of like playing with a dog. Sure, playing the game, like throwing a stick or ball, is somewhat entertaining, but the really fun part is interacting with the dog. The best part of Cosmo is, well, interacting with Cosmo. And the games are mostly a facilitator for that, although I must say, I did get a little competitive with the Quick Tap game. As you're just screwing around or completing daily goals, you will earn bits to upgrade Cosmo or unlock new games. And by the way, you'll never have to pay for these with real money. Just easily acquirable in-game currency. And there should be a lot of them, as the Anki team claims they have a multi-year roadmap for future upgrades. And along with that, you also get sparks, which are kind of like dog treats. They can be used to prompt Cosmo to show off and do a little trick. But as we were saying before, sometimes Cosmo will fail at these tasks that you have given him. Instead of acting like you might expect a robot to act by just repeatedly trying over and over again, Cosmo will get sad and lose confidence, resulting in him possibly trying the task in a different way, or maybe even switching tasks altogether, yet again, making him feel more real. Say he screws up big time and fails to recognize a table ledge, causing him to fall off. First off, he's rather durable and should be fine. Secondly, however, he will express major displeasure. He will lack bravery and confidence for a while, just like a non-robotic being. On the flip side, when Cosmo is excitedly doing fun things and succeeding, he will check in with you from time to time, making eye contact, calling your name, just like a happy kid would, and he'll go around and do a bunch of different things. Lots of what gives Cosmo this great personality is subtle, as it should be. The emotional algorithms, huge library of animations, dynamic interaction, incredibly awesome eyes, if you haven't noticed, and even a soundtrack. They aren't necessarily things you would actively think about, but together, they make a wonderful experience. Now let's look more in-depth at what's happening under the hood. Most of the computational power for Cosmo, including AI, computer vision, etc., is done through your phone, meaning you need to be connected at all times to Cosmo's Wi-Fi network. So just as a note, this does mean you won't be connected to the internet on your phone. While this does sort of suck, to be honest, this is good for another reason, which is very possibly more important to you. You're always offline, meaning that no pictures or video are taken, no voice is recorded. Your private conversations with Cosmo, or things that he sees and hears, are yours and don't go anywhere else. This also means that as your phone becomes better, Cosmo can too. With various software upgrades, you can enhance Cosmo's activities, behaviors, and interactions. Anki has a multi-year roadmap, as we mentioned earlier, for future upgrades, but if you want to make your own or rely on other people's creations, they offer an extensive Python SDK with great documentation available at developer.anki.com. Robotics programming has a crazy learning curve. Computer vision, path planning, 3D world modeling, all these things are highly difficult, and this API can make them easy with simple imports and function calls. And if you're more interested in the artsy animation side of things, however, do not fear. There will be a Maya animation kit with JSON output available later on. Now, Cosmo is made up of 320 individual components, and it took 45 entire mechanical iterations to achieve his final form. In the end, for computer vision, they ended up with a forward-facing camera and a cliff sensor. The cliff sensor is on the bottom of Cosmo and will mainly be used to keep him from falling off of tables. The camera is used to detect faces and familiar objects with QR code style identifiable images on them. Having a standard size for these images enables Cosmo to detect how far away they are and if they're on an angle, which is great, but for things he doesn't know about, he can use the camera to map them into his environment so he knows to stay away lest he bump into them. A lot of this tech is in place to avoid what is called robot kidnapping, or the idea of picking up Cosmo and putting him somewhere else, screwing up his carefully constructed map. He will then be able to find objects that he is used to seeing, like one of the boxes that has a QR code on it, map its position in the space, and then try to figure out where he's at. It's a smart little way to make him not be constantly, constantly confused while you're interacting with him. Now put all of that together into a cute little robot along with all the things I mentioned earlier, and you've got a gifted little guy with a huge amount of tricks under his sleeve. He's mischievous and a lot of fun, and I'm excited to check him out when they start shipping to Canada and other places outside the US. If you are too, go to Anki.com slash Cosmo.