Japan’s SoftBank said Thursday that its chatty humanoid robot Pepper would go on sale this weekend, as it announced a deal with China’s biggest e-commerce website Alibaba and a Taiwanese manufacturer to work on robotics technology.
The deal came as local media said Alibaba was trying to attract Chinese consumers to the wise-cracking robot, which is already being used to sell coffee machines and greet customers at a Japanese bank.
Standing about four feet tall, the robot has a human-like face perched on top of a white plastic body, with rollers and what looks like a tablet computer on its chest.
