Reuters "She may be a bit odd looking, what with a bright yellow face, silver arms and a positioning sensor on her head, but this tiny gal's got charm -- even if it is chip-induced. Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd say their new Internet-linked robot Wakamaru, unveiled on Thursday, has a friendly personality that could make her a much-loved member of the family," reports Reuters.
"We have tried to create a robot you can have a relationship with, just like a human," said technical team leader Ken Onishi, who said that while none of her individual features are revolutionary, putting them together in one cute package was a mammoth task.
Comment: Mitsubishi is offering 100 robots for sale in Tokyo for a limited time, starting today. The price is 1.575 million yen ($14,260 or £7,900) plus 10,000 yen per month maintenance. That's a hefty price for what amounts to a mobile PDA that doesn't have any legs. (But not nearly as expensive as The Independent thinks: it has translated the price into £790,000.)
Related: We first reported this in brief a couple of weeks ago - and got the price right!
