MIT Teddy Bear Robot ‘Enhances Relationships’

A robotic teddy bear developed at MIT combines robot interactivity with a kind of weird telepresence. The bear, called the “Huggable,” has 1,500 skin sensors, actuators for movement, microphones in its ears, cameras in its eyes and a speaker in its mouth. Inside is a PC connected to the Net by

Wi-Fi. It can operated in fully autonomous mode, where it interacts without human intervention. More interestingly, it has a semi-autonomous mode, where it serves additionally as a conduit for interaction with someone by the World Wide Web. society see and form out by the World Wide Web what the bear sees and hears, plus control it remotely like a creepy puppet.