If you’ve been following the large community of Jibo‘s early adopters, you know that they’re getting impatient. Some have expressed confusion about release dates for both Jibo and the software development kit (SDK) , and disappointment with the lack of new videos showing what Jibo will be able to do when it ships.
Well, Jibo has heard you, folks.
This week Jibo started rolling out the Jibo SDK Beta to its earliest supporters from the Indiegogo campaign. And there were many. To date, Jibo is the most successful robot crowdfunding campaign off all time, having raised $3,710,410. So it’s understandable why people who spent good money supporting the cause would get frustrated.
The Jibo SDK gives developers a new platform for building applications, and one of the first the company is showing off is Jibo’s ability to order you a pizza. You can watch Jibo in action in the video at the top of the page, but here’s how the interaction goes down:
User: “Jibo, “I want to order a pizza.”
Jibo: “Sure, what would you like?”
User: “I want a small, no, large pepperoni with olives.”
Jibo then displays the order on its screen as a small pizza and asks if this looks OK.
User: “No, I want a large.”
Jibo: “My bad. How is this?” and corrects the order.
Jibo even reminds the user that her son, Nathan, is allergic to olives and suggests removing olives from the order, which the user does. Jibo then ships the order.
This is pretty cool, if it’s truly how Jibo will work, and this wasn’t just a scripted video. Jibo said this application was built by an internal Jibo developer using the Jibo SDK who was playing with an external web service for pizza ordering.
Jibo also said it will release the SDK to all developers from the Indiegogo campaign in the coming weeks “so they can begin exploring the SDK and learning what it’s like to build skills for Jibo.” The SDK consists of four primary components built on Atom/Electron and Node.js: animation, behavior creation, skill simulation, and robot maintenance. With the Jibo SDK, developers have access to Jibo’s audio processing, visual processing, persona and interaction, and movement capabilities.
By the way, what’s up with robots and their love for pizza? Amazon Echo also let’s you order pizza using just your voice. And Domino’s has created its DRU pizza delivery robot that can hold up to 10 pizzas and deliver within a 12.5-mile radius before needing to be recharged. These robots are smart, working together on pizza ordering to make us all fat and easier to overthrow.
