Toshiba has invented a cute robot that learns what you’re doing with your TV remote and will then do it for you on spoken command:

Fed up with increasingly hard-to-use remote controls? Researchers at Japan’s Toshiba have developed a small, talking robot that can learn how to do it for you.
Instead of trying to remember which button to press on a remote control, users could simply ask the table-top robot to turn on the television or other appliances using its own infrared signal, Toshiba said.

The 21-centimetre (8.4-inch) tall ApriPoco robot — which is in the development stage — is equipped with sensors that can detect infrared rays from remote controls.

“What did you do now?” the robot, with big eyes and a round torso, would ask when the user clicks on a television programme.

The robot would then remember the link between the user’s answer and what was done with the remote control.

Filed under: Epic Stupidity, Gadgets