Aldebaran Robotics reveals Nao Next Gen robot

Aldebaran Robotics has unveiled the latest version of Nao, its very own plastic pal who’s fun to be with. Despite its toy-like appearance, it’s designed to be used for research and teaching – and, specifically, to help “serve organisations that care for autistic children and those losing their autonomy.”

New features include a hardware upgrade to a 1.6GHz Intel Atom chip, twin HD video cameras and Nuance voice recognition software. A “word spotting” feature enables the Nao Next Gen to recognise specific words within a sentence.

Nao’s also been upgraded with an improved walking algorithm that enables it to recognise when it’s about to fall over and shield itself from damage.

All features that will serve Nao well in the coming war against the humans. Er, we mean “research and teaching.”

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Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home