- Flash flooding kills three in northern Thailand
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- In France's Marseille, teen 'stabbed 50 times' then burned alive
- Ruthless Gauff beats Muchova in straight sets to win China Open
- India restrict Pakistan to 105-8 in Women's T20 World Cup
- England target repeat of Pakistan Test whitewash
- Penrith Panthers win fourth straight NRL title after downing Storm
- Weary Sinner happy for day off after battling into Shanghai last 16
- Pakistan's Masood warns England still a force without Stokes
- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Sabalenka targets world number one and Wuhan hat-trick
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Bagnaia sets 'example' with Japan MotoGP win to cut gap on Martin
- Intense Israeli bombing rocks Beirut ahead of war anniversary
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- Austrian rapper channels anti-racist rage in Romani hip-hop songs
- Ohtani magic powers Dodgers over Padres in MLB playoff thriller
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- Man sets arm on fire as marches across US mark Gaza war anniversary
- Vietnam's young coffee entrepreneurs brew up a revolution
- Trump rallies at site of failed assassination: 'Never quit'
- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- Is music finally reckoning with #MeToo?
- Fans hail Trump's 'guts' as he returns to site of rally shooting
- Lebanon state media says Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Miami on track for MLS record points after win in Toronto
- Monaco take top spot in Ligue 1 with win at Rennes
- Madrid beat Villarreal to level Liga leaders Barca
- Thuram treble fires Inter past Torino and up to second
- 'Fight': defiant Trump jets in to site of rally shooting
- Mexico City's new mayor sworn in with pledges on water, housing
- Israel on alert ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Guardians maul Tigers in MLB playoff series opener
- Macron criticises Israel on Gaza, Lebanon operations
- French rugby player whistled but 'serene' on return amid ongoing rape case
- Retegui hat-trick fires five-star Atalanta to hammering of Genoa
- Heavyweights Australia, England off to World Cup winning starts
- Visiting UN refugee agency chief decries 'terrible crisis' in Lebanon
- Spinners come to party as England defeat Bangladesh at T20 World Cup
- Search continues for missing in deadly Bosnia floods
- Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- France's Auradou whistled on Pau return in Perpignan loss amid ongoing rape case
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Arsenal hit back in style after Southampton scare
- Hezbollah heir apparent Safieddine out of contact after strikes
- Liverpool stay top of Premier League as Arsenal, Man City win
- In dank Tour of Emilia, Pogacar shines in rainbow jersey
- DR Congo launches mpox vaccination drive, hoping to curb outbreak
Rise of the cute robots
The red eye that refuses to be extinguished, the metal body that cannot be crushed -- for many of us the word "robot" conjures one image: the Terminator.
But robots are now everywhere, serving as companions in care homes or vacuum cleaners in our homes, and manufacturers are keener than ever to design friendly machines.
"At first we noticed the kids could be a bit afraid," said Do Hwan Kim of his firm Neubility's tiny delivery robot.
To get around the problem, the firm added big doughy eyes that can indicate, making it look like the world's friendliest futuristic wheelie bin.
Dozens of the machines now trundle around campsites, university campuses and golf courses across South Korea.
"Campsites even use it on their posters," Kim told AFP at the VivaTech trade fair in Paris, underlining its transformation from potential threat to family friend.
And VivaTech played host to plenty of other robots designed with cuteness in mind -- ones with cartoon animal personas, others that looked like children's toys from the 1980s.
The aesthetic stands in stark contrast to the creepy dog-bots and anonymous drones that have become standard.
- 'Escaped' from cartoon -
As robots have become more common, a whole field of academia has grown up studying the interaction between machines and humans.
Kerstin Dautenhahn of Waterloo University in Canada, one of the most noted researchers in the area, said she had seen a huge shift in the way manufacturers looked at design: from an all-consuming concern with function to an acute awareness of appearance.
"What you find in many, many fields... is that people pay a lot of attention to how the robot moves, how it looks, how it can interact with them," she said.
This holds true for robots sharing production lines with human workers just as much as those designed to care for older and disabled people.
"Even with those robots where the main function for example is to transport objects from A to B, people still need to pay a lot of attention to how the robot moves, how it can express its intentions," she said.
A French firm called Enchanted Tools has fully committed to the friendly aesthetic.
Their robots have names, genders, cartoon-style personas and even a back story.
"These two characters have escaped from a cartoon to come into our everyday lives to help us manage our social spaces," said the firm's boss Jerome Monceaux.
He envisages the brightly coloured machines with cat-like features will help in hospitals, hotels, restaurants and anywhere with objects that need moving.
These cute robots take their design cues from a family of social companion robots, which are big business in Japan.
- Stairway hell -
Dautenhahn says there is plenty of evidence that people in Japan and South Korea hold more positive views about robots than people in the West.
"In Japan, if you say 'I want to build a robot that helps older people in a care home to be happier', they just think it's a great idea," she said.
In European countries, the initial response is often negative, fuelled by dystopian science fiction.
"We have to do a lot of convincing," she added.
Small pilot schemes in the United States have seen robots get bullied or even assaulted, though social-media videos have also shown people helping robots navigate pedestrian crossings.
Handling these cultural difficulties is a challenge, says Dautenhahn.
But there are plenty of other difficulties.
Robots are expensive to design and manufacture, and so they don't come cheap to buy.
Enchanted Tools reckons its robots will retail at 35,000 euros ($38,000) while Neubility said it aimed to manufacture its bot for $5,000.
Then there is the issue of finding a market.
Do Hwan Kim said Neubility was aiming to corner grocery deliveries and has a pilot scheme with the 7-Eleven chain in South Korea.
But its robot faces a common hurdle for machines: it cannot climb stairs.
Kim hopes market forces will give a helping hand.
"At the moment, the delivery cost is so much cheaper with the robot that people are happy to come down the stairs to get their groceries," he said.
E.Borba--PC