Uniqlo’s Retail Robot

This month, a robotic staff member named Wakamaru will be coming to the Japanese clothing store Uniqlo in New York’s trendy SoHo neighborhood. Designed by Mitsubishi, the robot can express emotions, make eye contact, and it’s outfitted with facial recognition software.

Wakamaru will be able to greet customers, inform people about special sales, and “lead staff in motivational morning exercises.” Wakamaru first went on sale three years ago. It runs a Linux operating system
on multiple microprocessors.

Wakamaru is supposedly the first robot to be featured in a retail store environment. It was originally designed to assist disabled people. For some reason, this friendly robot is named after a famous 12th century samurai.

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