Wired Science

Rocking Out with Japan's Cutest Robot

He's tiny, yellow, as squishy as the Pillsbury Dough Boy, and over a million people have downloaded a video of him dancing to a Spoon song.

The little robot called Keepon is much more than just another online time-waster for those with nothing better to do than update their MySpace page 50 times a day. Marek Michalowski of Carnegie Mellon University, and Hideki Kozima of Japan's National Institute of Communications Technology, designed Keepon as a tool to study dance-oriented nonverbal play involving children.

Resembling two conjoined Nerf balls with eyes , Keepon is a rubber-skinned robot designed to communicate attention and emotion by turning, nodding, rocking and bobbing his bulbous body. Cameras behind his eyes and a microphone in his nose add to his interactivity. He's the first product of Michalowski and Kozima's Beatbots, which aims to develop robots that interact with people through "social rhythms": matching the periodic, rhythmic movements of our bodies, heads and hands with bouncy dance moves.  As the pair writes on the project's website, "We believe that rhythmic synchrony is as important for establishing engagement, rapport, and comfort between a robot and a person as it is between people,". Coming soon: Keepon's lower-cost, blue sibling, Roillo.

Michalowski and Kozima posted a demo video of Keepon getting down - and up, and around and around - to the Spoon song, "I Turn My Camera On". It became a viral hit on YouTube, logging some 1.5 million downloads and counting. It got the attention of the band, who invited Keepon to star in another video - with band members making cameo appearances - for their song "Don't You Evah". WIRED SCIENCE brings it to you here.