NEC Corp's PaPeRo robotic buddy is much like the home robots that assist with controlling your household electronics, though PaPeRo won't stop helping you when you leave the house. It also doubles as an assistant in the car, and it'll use the knowledge it's gained aiding you around the house to give you directions.

NEC gave the example of a driver trying to get to Yokohama in Japan for a date. Based on previous conversations between the driver and PaPeRo (containing information pertinent to the date), the 'bot will work out what it can with a home server and toss the best route onto a dash-mounted GPS unit, which also has a bobbing little PaPeRo floating around on the screen to continue helping out. If it doesn't have enough information, it'll ask you questions until it knows what it needs to — and remember the answers.

PaPeRo is a concept NEC has been working on for years, and it'll be nice to see how home robots do once they start hitting shelves. Right now, robots like the PaPeRo promise to merge together everything from controlling a television to giving you directions in a car, and all the while giving you a responsive 'bot for a friend to interface with.

Via Tech-On!