KDDI R&D Laboratories and systems builder I Bee KK have developed a two-legged robot that incorporates facial authentication technology that KDDI R&D is refining for cell phones.

The technology is designed to prevent unauthorized access to private information on a phone by using the handset’s camera to photograph the user’s face and verify ownership.

I don’t know if this KDDI robot is the one referred to but i found it so cute i couldn’t resist

The robot is equipped with a CCD camera, and uses the facial authentication technology to identify people by comparing the camera picture with a database of faces.

Normally, the person would need to stand directly in front of the camera for the picture to be taken. But this robot has the ability to move. It uses image processing technology to locate the face, then adjusts its own position to stand in front of the person and take the picture for authentication purposes.

KDDI R&D Laboratories hopes to commercialize the robot for amusement and other applications.

Via Nikkei.
Thanks for your help Konomi!

UPDATE: New Scientist blog has found a picture of the robot and it’s super cute.

Talking about robots: the favourite of the blogosphere seems to be the jocose robot carp; Italy has designed robots that use heat-sensitive cameras for fighting fires, they also developed CiceRobot to guide visitors at the Archeological Musuem in Agrigente according to their preferences.