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Ibn Sina Is the World's First Arabic-Speaking Robot

by Warren Riddle on September 14, 2010 at 03:35 PM

ibn sina robot
The United Arab Emirates currently enjoys, or endures, a tenuous relationship with technology. Last spring, the pioneering nation launched one of the world's first non-Latin domain names with a new Arabic Web address. But, the U.A.E. also frequently bans and blocks various technological developments, including popular video games and seemingly mundane messenger services.

Faced with such a dichotomous dilemma, a group of researchers with U.A.E. University in Abu Dhabi are seeking funding for a groundbreaking robot. The Ibn Sina bot, named for a famed Persian philosopher-physician, earned accolades, wonderment and bewilderment last year as the world's first Arabic-speaking robot. Equipped with realistic facial expressions and movements, Ibn Sina relies on information-gathering software -- and social network snooping -- to engage people in intelligent, impromptu exchanges that it can actually remember and reference in later conversations.

But, according to the BBC, Dr. Nikolaos Mavridis of the university's Interactive Robots Laboratory believes "things are at a very, very primitive stage which is really hindering further progress." To allay the financial concerns, Mavridis and his crew recently took Ibn Sina to a networking convention in Dubai in search of investors. While some observers and potential financiers may doubt the practical benefits of such a "menacing" looking bot, Ibn Sina's commercial possibilities definitely appear promising, because -- at the very least -- it's immeasurably less creepy than certain competitors.

Tags: abu dhabi, AbuDhabi, bots, ibn sina, IbnSina, interactive robot, InteractiveRobot, Robots, top, uae, united arab emirates, UnitedArabEmirates

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