Tan Jianrong was invited to be the Chief Scientist of QIHAN Technology

On July 27th, Tan Jianrong, the Academician of China Engineering Academy, Mechanical Engineering Specialist, and professor of Zhejiang University, was invited grandly to be the Chief Scientist of QIHAN Technology. The two sides would plan to begin the deep cooperation in artificial intelligence robotics, and apply to build the academician workstation to train the first-rate industrial talents, to improve the R&D ability of Chinese service robot and commercialization of cute-edge research results.

The appointment ceremony of the chief scientist was held grandly on July 27th and Mr. Lin Lvde, the CEO of QIHAN Technology issued the certificate to Tan Jianrong.

“It is one of the milestone events for QIHAN Technology to recruit Tan as the Chief Scientist and it marks the innovation development strategy of QIHAN Technology went into a whole-new historic phase in artificial intelligence.” Mr. Lin made the speech at the ceremony, “Mr. Tan will make the strategic guidance for the artificial intelligence development and make an entire guidance for the present AI technology system in QIHAN Technology. We two sides will apply to build the academician workstation together and will make a specific research cooperation plan in the key business direction of artificial intelligence.”

After receiving the certificate, Mr. Tan shared his points of views on the development of artificial intelligence too. “The development of advanced commercial robots will generate the three big trends: hard-soft fusion, virtual-real fusion and human-machine fusion. We should have to have both the hard and the soft in the development of advanced AI robot. Under the condition of intelligent hardware condition, artificial intelligence is based on the big data processing and using developed Internet to combine the local application functions, to offer real and effective commercial value for various industries.

The judgements on robotic development from Tan happen to coincide with the strategy of the development and research and commercial application of Sanbot service robot. In 2016, QIHAN Technology proposed to be the creator and leader of intelligent service robot, and has been devoted itself to building the developer ecosystem of “Robot + Various Industries”. QIHAN Technology has been integrating the technical ability and industry resources of robot developer & manufacturer and robotic solution developers to form the “Robot + Industrial App + Cloud service” three-in-one ecosystem, create multi-role robot products in various industries and offer intelligent services in the multiple scenarios.

After the appointment, TAN Jianrong will play the full role in the AI system design and R&D achievement and industry experience in intelligent manufacturing and virtual reality. He will cooperate with QIHAN R&D team deeply to improve the R&D ability of the intelligent service robotics and promote the commercialization of cut-edge achievements. In addition, the two sides will apply to build the academician workstation together to gather and train first-rate industry talents to break through technical barriers and Production-Study-Research land, to take the lead in the coming eruptible development of artificial intelligence.

Sanbot played the role of retail sales assistantin PC world branch store in the UK

It was a fantastic day for PC World (retailer) and the consumers in one of its branch stores in Norfolk City, United Kingdom because a cute and helpful friend arrive - Sanbot intelligent robot. On July 22nd, Sanbot played the role of retail sales assistant and performed sales promotion and management in the branch store of PC world in Norfolk City.

PC World is one of the United Kingdom's largest chains of mass-market computer superstores. It is part of Dixons Retail plc. PC World operates under the brand name PC City in Spain, Italy, and Sweden. PC World has a lot of influence on the retail business in the UK and its prices are perfect for consumers.

At first, Sanbot’s dance attracted massive onlookers to have a visit and an interaction with it. With its AI system powered by IBM Watson, Sanbot advanced intelligent robot greeted customers with, “Welcome to PC World Electronics Store” and responded to people’s jokes and inquiries fluently, humorously, and thoughtfully. If you were a repeat customer, Sanbot’s advanced facial recognition enabled it to recognize you and call your name as the receptionist, which made you feel like you were interacting with a human.

Many of the onlookers were hesitant to buy at that time they entered the store, but then they got more details about their interested electronic products.

In the store, onlookers had a great interest in the robot and received a detailed introduction about the robot from the sales manager of the store.

Sanbot then introduced the products in the PC World branch store by displaying the product image and key features and describing the product by voice. Traditional showcase methods such as hawking and paper did not seem attractive to the consumers. Sanbot robot, as a moving advertising board, is able to inform all the people in the store in new and entertaining ways. This is supported by MPS for retail.

MPS for retail is a retail solution designed by QIHAN Technology and used especially for retail. With MPS for retail, Sanbot robot can be set into four working modes including customer reception, product introduction, activity promotion, and entertainment. MPS (Multi-functional Platform System) is a centralized management system that enables businesses to control and monitor their fleet of interactive Sanbot robots from anywhere – bringing personalized communications and services to companies worldwide.

It could not be better for consumers because not only did they purchase cost-effective and desirable goods, but they shopped with enjoyment. The consumers each participated in a raffle app with a 100% winning percentage after participating in the questionnaire from Sanbot robot. Each consumer had the chance to get a gift from PC World. The questionnaire, which keeps people’s answers secure, allows the retailers to learn more about the consumers’ consumption behaviors and desires and then adjusts the retail business to match the consumers’ needs, enhancing customer stickiness.

Furthermore, Sanbot robot is capable of issuing electronic coupons, write-offs, membership cards and payment collection. This effectively promotes the retail business whether in sales value or customer experience. Undoubtedly, Sanbot robot is the good assistant for your retail business.

Sanbot robot was welcomed by all sectors of Turkey

On July 20th, QIHAN Sanbot held a Sanbot Robot Partners Meeting in Nippon Hotel, Istanbul, Turkey. This is a significant conference to both Turkish robot industry and QIHAN Technology and the conference made Sanbot famous on one day among all sectors of Turley. European sales representative and product manager attended and made a speech at the meeting.

Sanbot robot, powered by QIHAN Technology, unleashes the capabilities of Cloud service robotics and AI for retail, hospitality, education, healthcare, security, and other customer-oriented industries to deliver a smarter and more personalized service to the whole world. Sanbot's open API enables developers to build Android applications that utilize Sanbot's tremendous AI and learning capabilities.

The Sanbot Robot Partners Meeting attracted lots of scholars and professionals in AI solution development, telecom, shopping mall or super market, representatives in AI and Istanbul governmental officials, as well as QIHAN Technology's business partners about Sanbot robot. 

At the meeting, Daniel and Rancho had a detailed introduction about Sanbot robot and addressed the importance of the cooperation between Turkish and Chinese enterprises in AI industry, especially in AI robot. Strategically, QIHAN Technology has always been considering Turkey markets crucial between Asia and Europe, no matter about its location or large-scaled markets. The speech garnered approves and praises by the professionals and scholars.

QIHAN Technology is the brand owner and manufacturer of Sanbot intelligent robot. QIHAN has been always insisting on the concept of “Robotics as a service” since it began to research and develop intelligent robot. And now QIHAN has got over 800 employees and 350+ senior engineers, aimed to offer the world with first-rate advanced AI robot.

The meeting received media coverage of 24 international media and magazines including CNN, Sozcu, Haberler, SonDakika, Tam İndir, etc. Titled by “Chinese Robot Sanbot in Turkey! You may be a Business Friend”, Haberler reported, “Sanbot has features such as monitoring, speech recognition, face recognition, and also has fun aspects such as image playback, music playing and dancing.” Praised as it is indeed, Sanbot humanoid robot is always your home and business friends; It is multi-functional to serve you and your businesses, but it will never make a threat to anyone or anything in the world.

The rate of Chinese AI robot’s facial recognition has reached more than 99%

In recent years, scientific community has been seeking breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. Especially at facial recognition looking for missing people, it has become a focus topic that whether AI technology can play a practical role in public service area such as missing people search and so on through hi-tech methods. It’s worth mentioning that Chinese Academy of Science has invented one AI robot and the rate of facial recognition nearly reached 100%. The intelligent robot has been applied practically in people’s lives.

It’s understood that, the artificial intelligent robot, named Xiaojia and invented by Wang Jinqiao’s team under Chinese Academy of Science, has the high rate of 99% at facial recognition. Comparing ID card and live image and under the condition of one hundred-thousandth false alarm rate, the facial recognition rate has reached more than 99%. And its rate reaches 85% under the dynamic condition.

Wang Jinqiao explained, “Xiaojia’s facial recognition adopts one low-power consumption and neural network algorithm based on deep learning. It is able to capture facial all-round structure characteristics and partial nuanced difference at the same time, so as to learn about individual facial structure.”

It’s introduced that, in practical application, Xiaojia’s facial recognition function has helped police to find out numerous litigants’ relatives. On Sep. 12th, 2016, in Song County Henan Province, a man saw the other one very similar with him and considered him his twin brother missing for many years, so he called the police. The police then collected both their facial images and Xiaojia AI robot finally checked out they are the right twin brother separate for 40 years. Earlier before this event on Aug 10th, 2016, an old woman in Ruzhou City could not find her home and didn’t take anything with her, then police collected the woman’s facial image with phone and input into Xiaojia’s facial recognition system. The advanced AI robot found out the woman’s ID within one second.

During last two sessions, Li Yanhong, the CEO of Chinese Baidu, proposed the concept of AI for people search, receiving extensive attention from society. With the continuous mature of artificial intelligence, facial recognition and its technical universality will be much more popular in people search and other public services. In the future, intelligent service robot, one of the best artificial intelligent carriers, will play much bigger role in people’s lives, both for home or commercial usages.

Nanjing Central Emporium introduced Sanbot robot as a resident assistant

With beautiful shape and talking leisurely, an intelligent service robot never stopped saying "hello" to the onlookers, enthusiastically answering their questions such as "how to get the cashier?", "Can I rent a baby carriage?", " Can you recommend me the delicious food in shopping mall?" and more about shopping concerns. That robot was Sanbot intelligent robot, which was newly introduced by the Hexi Shop of Nanjing Central Emporium. Thanks to its excellent services, Sanbot intelligent robot became consumers' favorite interactive partners.

According to the Yangzi Evening, the Hexi Shop of Nanjing Central Emporium, one large-scale one-station shopping center located in the Nanjing Olympic Sports Center, hired a batch of intelligent robot staff to play the roles of consultant manager, almighty inquiring manager, smiling accompany assistant and others. In order to welcome the first batch of robot staff, Nanjing Central Emporium held a funny "entry ceremony" in its Hexi shop, attracting many consumers to watch and interact.

Wang Meng, General Manager of Nanjing Central Emporium, confirmed the information to Yangzi Evening sooner after the report. He said the Central Emporium that was founded in January 1936, once was the first large-scale integrated shopping mall in Nanjing, adhering to the concept of "Leading the industry trend". Recently, the Central Emporium took the pilot work at its Hexi shop. The manager introduced Sanbot intelligent robot from domestic leading robot manufacturers - QIHAN Technology. As a resident assistant in Hexi shop, Sanbot provides consultant services for buyers to upgrade consumption experience.

It is known that three Sanbot robots, each named Xiaohe, Xiaoxi and Xiaozhong, would take up their quarters on Saturday at the soonest. Among them, Xiaohe, the inquiring assistant, is responsible to provide information inquiring service, greet customers, see them off, and broadcast real-time shopping information and guide customers to pay attention to the malls' new information. All-around consultant assistant Xiaoxi will help human staff with baby carriage and wheel borrowing, missing persons broadcasting, putting broadcast, first-aid knowledge, free water, parking fee guidance and other services. Xiaoxi will link all the retail scenarios in the entire shopping center, just like "a moving map" and "utility service guide". While, Xiaozhong, the smiling accompany assistant, will mainly perform shows and humorous communication with customers to enhance their sense of participation and interaction, attracting customers and promote the consumption.

Wang Meng revealed that it was only a small initial test and he planned to introduce more Sanbot robots into other chain shops under the group to promote their retail businesses.

He told Yangzi Evening: "The traditional department stores are faced with a necessary transformation towards the fuse of catering, supermarkets, theaters and others with matched shopping center. Taking Hexi Shop as example, we set the consumption upgrading program including catering, fitness and fast consumption brands on first floor, children’s entertainment on the third floor and main central projects distributed on the fourth floor. Introducing intelligent robots is one of the significant measures of transformation. With the robots’ interesting interactions and practical retail business services such as electronic coupons, payment collection, membership card processing, etc. to leave unforgettable impression and promote the customer stickiness.

It is becoming the new trend for offline retail business to promote consumption experience with robot. Just in the past one week, QIHAN Technology delivered one batch of Sanbot Elf robot to the customers in Nanjing, Harbin, Nanchang. The robots are mainly commercial chain intelligent robot, especially used in large shopping malls to promote their chain retail business.

Sanbot commercial chain robot is the most popular in Chinese domestic markets. Besides the customer reception, the marketing promotion ability is one of its highlights for retailers. They are moving advertising platform, it can host marketing activities, as well as ads promotion and giving out electronic coupons at shopping centers, public squares and communities, etc. QIHAN Technology told Yangzi Evening, In future, QIHAN will explore more users' demands to help retailers to create more commercial values and upgrade consumption experience in physical retail stores. We will never stop to introduce and integrate robotic retail solutions to Sanbot robot to improve the service abilities for retail businesses.

Sanbot, a new teacher for De Fonkeling elementary school in Netherlands

It was a special class for the students in De Fonkeling Elementary School, because they'd got a cute and smart robot to teach them interactively. Last week on July 13th, Sanbot robot performed a vivid education class in the elementary school in Netherlands.

"Robotics as a Service", Sanbot is a Cloud service open API intelligent robot applied to various scenarios. Thanks to the open API, developers can build Android applications that utilize Sanbot’s tremendous AI and learning capabilities. Sanbot unleashes capabilities of cloud-enabled robotics and AI for retail, education, healthcare, hospitality, security, and other customer-oriented industries to deliver a smarter and more personalized service.

With AI system powered by IBM Watson, Sanbot intelligent programmable robot can easily interact with human beings in near 30 languages at each scenario, including in the classroom. In the class, Sanbot appeared in the front of the classroom together with Mr. Stvan Turi, the director of De Fonkeling Elementary School. Sanbot recorded and stored the contents Stvan taught and students could learn from the robot directly if they didn’t catch all the classes, which shared responsibility of the face-to-face Q&A between teacher and students.

After teaching process, Stvan programmed Sanbot to inquiry about the taught contents. The cute robot interacted with students in a humorous, serious or soulful way, leaving unforgettable impression and deepening the memory of class education.

During the break, students surrounded Sanbot, asking teacher about how the robot works, interacting with the robot, and dancing together with the rhythm of Sanbot. In addition, they enjoyed the interesting movies via the 1080p touchscreen or HD laser HD projector. If one student is not available for the class, the Q-Link mobile App is easy to help to remote monitor all the statuses and voice in the classroom, seeming you are at the scene.

DTV media interviewing Mr. Stvan Turi, the director of the elementary school

What's more, Sanbot is capable of facial recognition. After programmed all the students' identification, the robot can help with check-in and check-out when the class begins and finishes. And the parents can easily know their kids' class condition via Q-Link mobile App, reassuring them a lot.

It was the first robotic education experience for the school, leaving deep impression to the school leaders and students. Sanbot's excellent performance attracted the interview of DTV, the public broadcasting television for the municipalities of Oss and Bernheze. "I believe there are certain things that can be done by robots. Whether we get a classroom with only classroom robots? I do not think." says Istvan Turi. Mr. Dirk Megens, a professor of economics at the ROC Nijmegen, also explained his point of view on the robot to the media,  "I think it's a supplement, a teacher's help, and a kind of remedial teacher could be." 

Yes, it is definitely right that Sanbot service robot will never take the jobs of human beings and there will not any threat to human. Sanbot is one of the best tools to carry and practice artificial intelligence and delivery hi-tech life experience to the whole world.

Intel: The Integration of AI and SI Makes Robot Industry Grow and Prosper

Song Zhiqiang, the Dean ofIntel Labs China, ILC, claimed the integration of artificial intelligence  (AI) and smart interaction (SI) would make intelligent robot industry burst out. The whole article is as follows.

Today, we are embracing a new world of Internet of Everything. More and more things and equipment have achieved interconnection through network, which makes data outbreak. Data surges like a blood and has becoming the most important driving force in the technical field. Artificial intelligence, automatic drive, 5G, VR / MR and a series of forward-looking technology, give us the opportunity to fully release the potential of these data, and constantly upgrade the human life experience.

We would like to share and communicate with you about Intel's observation of forward-looking technology, and investigate the present and the future of Internet of Everything. Let us begin from the perspective of robot and artificial intelligence to find out industry opportunities in the era of data deluge.

As the most important application area of artificial intelligence, robot has been always paid high attention. Intelligent humanoid robots appeared in Hollywood blockbuster give the public high expectations. However, the intelligent capability of real intelligent service robot is far from that in the movie. With the trend of artificial intelligence promoted by deep learning, it has become a very important issue how intelligent robot industry breaks out. I think there are two key aspects: one is the deep integration of AI and SI; the other is the security of intelligent robots. We'll take about the security later, and now let's focus on the integration of AI and SI.

In the academic world, AI has a commonly-used definition, is to understand the essence of intelligence, and be able to produce a kind of intelligent machine that can respond to external input, similar with human being. The ultimate goal of this discipline is to give the machine intelligent reaction capacity, so advanced AI robot can be seen as the ultimate goal of artificial intelligence.

There are two ways to understand the essence of intelligence: One is to speculate how people is thinking in an intelligent way from the observers' behaviors by virtue of philosophical or psychological methods; the other is to cut apart human brain to check the neuro anatomical structure, and find out the laws of intelligent activities through brain activity detection technology and well-designed experiments.

We have a knowledge of intelligence (not exactly right, but at least the model comes out), but how to make the machine smart need? It needs mathematicians, computer scientists and automation experts to study thoroughly. Therefore, there are many disciplines related to artificial intelligence. Besides soft theory, models and algorithms, it also needs the practice of hardware. For example, intelligent machine needs chips to provide it with a strong computing and storage ability. In addition, advanced humanoid robot requires the technical support of complex system control, either.

In fact, this wave of artificial intelligence is also benefiting from the improvements of calculations and storage technology. ANN is to train machine with massive data, and then machine learns about the inherent laws from the data and build a model, finally, the model will help to speculate new data. This is called a machine learning process. It requires a lot of storage and computing power, but now we are living in an extraordinary appropriate era of machine learning's big development.

Sanbot performs real services for businesses

[Ebrun]Imagine that: when you go into a supermarket, it is a robot that greets you, introduces you the latest promotional activity; and also, it is a robot that guides you to process membership card and the electronics coupons, and collects payment from you… Those are what Sanbot can do.

Adhering to the concept of  "Robotics as a Service" , Sanbot intelligent robot is a robotic product researched and developed independently by QIHAN Technology. The robot is equipped with rich perception, including touching perception, RGB image, 3D image, PIR thermoinduction, IR, voice, gyroscope and touchscreen, etc. In addition, it is capable of voice interaction, touching interaction, gesture interaction, posture interaction, mobile App mobile control, etc.; Furthermore, Sanbot can perform semantic comprehension, facial recognition, independent voice location, auto charge, intelligent safety protection and more artificial intelligence. Since its debut, the open API humanoid robots have gone into scenarios such as family, commercial chain, customs inspection, banks and the public service area.

In commercial chain area, the latest version Sanbot robot, Sanbot intelligent shopping robot can take the work of attracting consumers, advertising promotion, guidance and interpretation, cashier assistant, membership card processing, remote shop keeping and intelligent management, especially for supermarket, retail shop and related scenarios.

Ryan Wu, the vice president of QIHAN Technology introduced to Ebrun, “In the offline shop, it does not really help retail with their businesses if a robot only attracts customers into the shops.Thus it’s not popular, not even to promote the transformation of traditional retail business or intelligent business. But now, with the mature of technology and the integration of scenarios, robot can play a bigger and bigger role.”

In the past year, Sanbot service robots were popularly used in retail scenarios including clothing shop, jewelry shop, clock shop and other middle-high-end area. The shops might not very large but their service satisfaction is important to customers. Sanbot helped retails with questionnaire, passenger flow analysis and staff check-in services, as well as production introduction and advertising promotion. In a restaurant, supermarket or convenient store, Sanbot offered services such as dispensing electronic coupons, customer reception, entertainment interaction, payment collection, membership card processing, etc. Ryan told Ebrun.

In generally, offline business uses robot to conduct standardized, routine and low extra-value work. Or you can say that, it does the job human staff would like not to. At this aspect, Sanbot can save much labor cost than human staff, it handles repetitive work with higher efficient and higher accurate than human staff. It does not feel annoyed and tired.

Another highlight of Sanbot intelligent robot is Sanbot's most innovative business management system - MPS (Multi-service Platform System). MPS is a centralized management system that enables businesses to control and monitor their fleet of interactive Sanbot robots anywhere. With MPS in retail, operator can manage all the Sanbots in the chain stores to perform customized task at defined time, such as promotional activity, lottery and questionnaire survey to record and storage passengers’ big data, etc., which could improve customer experience and retail service quality effectively.

What's more, Ebrun also knew of that, exception for the commercial chain area, Sanbot programmable humanoid robots were applied in families and customization. For example, Xiaohai, the customized Sanbot robot applied for Chinese customs inspection, Sanbot robot for taxation, Sanbot robot in healthcare, and Guagua, the customized robot applied in agricultural management, in banks, and more…

The Intel Artificial Intelligence & Robotics Innovative Ecosystem Summit was Held in Shanghai

On July 6th, as one of the important activities organized at the same time with China International Robot Show, the Intel Artificial Intelligence& Robotics Innovative Ecosystem Summit was held in Shanghai. Intel, as well as the representatives of its partners in robot industry and robot academics, talked about the opportunity and challenges of Chinese robot industry, and points out the prospect of development of robot industry in the era of artificial intelligence. The International Data Corporate (IDC) and China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) issued the white paper of Robotics 3.0 New Ecosystem in the Era of Artificial Intelligence.

According to presentations, the white paper analyzes the dynamics status and development trend of Chinese intelligent robots. What's more, the new concept of Robot 3.0 is proposed in the paper, indicating that robot is going into Intelligent Era 3.0 and the combination of artificial intelligence technology and intelligent robot will be much closer. In addition, the white paper studies the exploration of the Robotics Innovation Ecosystem, which was created by Intel and its business partners. The ecosystem is considered as one beneficial attempt to promote organic cooperation and coordinative innovation, and builds one three-dimensional, omnibearing and organic ecological innovation road.

At the summit, Intel showed its serious progress and achievements during the processes of creating the open Robotics Innovation Ecosystem. Since its debut in July, 2016, the Robotics Innovation Ecosystem has been flourishing under the support of its robot industry partners. The ecosystem has aggregated over 1000 robot teams, 300 robot chain suppliers and more than 10,000 active users, promoting the continuous and healthy development of intelligent service robots in China and speeding up the application of artificial intelligence in advanced AI robots, The Robotics Innovation Ecosystem has been the key driving force to promote the transformation and upgrading of artificial intelligent robots in China.

"Artificial intelligence is one of Intel's strategic focuses under the background of data flood trend. As one of the leaders of artificial intelligence innovation, till now, Intel is the only company which can offer configuration and technology of terminal to terminal. Intel will take its technological advantages in artificial intelligence area to immit new energy for robotics innovation." Song Jiqiang, the president of Intel Labs China (ILC) introduced at the summit.

Sanbot robots held traffic safety knowledge competition

“Hello, Sir! Where is the portable fire extinguisher? A, Under the couch; B, At door A; C, At window B?” On Jun 24th, at the Chegongmiao Metro Station in Shenzhen city, Sanbot humanoid robot performed one competition about safety knowledge in the metro station, amazing massive passengers at the scene.

It was the opening ceremony of Shenzhen Rail Transit Promotional Season and fifth anniversary celebration on Jun 24th. Since that day, the 3-month activity has begun promoting knowledge of civil bus ride, which enhances passengers’ concept of safe ride and creates the atmosphere of safe courtesy and civil travel. Shenzhen Rail Transit Office, the Traffic Branch of Public Security Bureau and Shenzhen Metro Group Corporation participated in the opening ceremony. QIHAN Sanbot was invited grandly as the host of safety knowledge competition and Sanbot service robot  is the first robot which worked in the metro station.

At the opening ceremony activity, the fascinating competition of metro safety knowledge became the greatest highlight.

Gifts for competition winners

“Hello, the manual fire alarms are set both in the hall and platform of metro station; which way can you use to inform metro staff once the fire happens? A, Touch manual alarm; B, Press the manual alarm. ” Sanbot inquired. What was interesting was that Sanbot would say “Congratulations, your answer is right and you can have a gift now!” when the robot recognized the right answer. The hi-level human-robot interactive experience attracted hundreds of people to have a look or participate in.

“It is very interesting and attractive that the advanced AI robot hosts safety promotional activity,” Mr. Wang, one passenger told the working staff, “the effect must be better than that of human staff as human is too common to stop the passers-by. Now organizer uses a robot to publicize safety knowledge, which is impressive and people can remember the knowledge easily. I like that.”

On that day, Sanbot also offered services at the entrance of business coach of metro line 11. The robot reminded each passenger to swipe card at the coach door and broadcast announcements. The working staff told the media, “Intelligent service robot can reduce staff’s workload. During the riding rush hours, the workloads are very heavy and we cannot pay attention to each passenger. With the robot, we are released from the monotonous work and can operate more complex work.”

  

QIHAN Technology, the manufacturer of the intelligent robot, told the metro manager that Sanbot robot integrated information broadcast, voice interaction, independent walking, automatic obstacle avoidance and security surveillance functions etc. According to the scenarios, Sanbot could offer safety knowledge promotional services, such as notices at entrance, escalator riding, and notices in coach, etc. In this way, passengers would absorb the safety knowledge unconsciously.

With the AI technology going mature and robotic applications becoming popular, the functions of Sanbot will be optimized continuously. To combine the artificial intelligence and transit service together is helpful to change metro stations from traditional human services to more intelligent and informationalized services.

Sanbot open API enables developers to create various robotic solutions

The artificial intelligence robotics is booming, with more and more companies vying for market share. For the most part, though, these companies have all been from US or Europe. But things are always changing: now a Chinese manufacturer has come up with a robotic product that claims to offer open API, allowing developers to customize it.

Asmag: Could you briefly introduce your product? 

QIHAN Technology: Sanbot, powered by QIHAN Technology Co. Ltd.,is an intelligent Cloud-brained humanoid robot, one three-in-one ecosystem, which consist of Sanbot robot, Qihan Cloud service platform and Q-link mobile App. Sanbot is equipped with different types of sensitive sensors and reliable hardware such as 3D HD camera, 1080p display screen and 720p laser HD projector, etc.Integrating IBM Watson AI system, the robot is capable of human detection, facial recognition, automatic recharging, obstacle avoidance, voice recognition, localization and free interactionwith near 30 languages.

One of its most advantages is that Sanbot offers open API, which allows developers to customize and program various applications in retail, hospitality, security, healthcare and education industry. Till now, Sanbot robots have been successfully used at the scenarios like China Customs, Shenzhen and Guangzhou International Airport, Audi Launch event, with praises andpositive feedbacks from user.

What makes your product special? Why?

1.Powerful team: We now have more 800 working staff including over350 senior engineers with numerous-year research experience.They have published near 1000 hi-level theses and gained around 100 domestic and international patents.

2.Reliable hardware and software: Sanbot humanoid service robots adopt world-class hardware and software from Harman/Kardon, Foxconn, Panasonic, Sony, IBM Watson Baidu and iFlytek, etc.

3.Open-API: We offer openAPI and SDK for developers and integrators, which means that Sanbot can be programmed and customized according to the scenarios where they’d like the robot to work.

4.Mass-production capacity and competitive price: With full automatic production lines, Qihan manufacturing Center has the production capacity of 1,500 sets per day. We offer quitecompetitive prices for our partners including AI carrier distributors, robotic solution developers and integrators and we are now recruiting more partners like these. But we can’t say a definite price as their application areas, order quantities and customized requests.

5.Applications cases: Sanbot service robots have been approved and used in Gongbei Customs for customs inspection and Tax all. The advanced AI robots offer customized services in Guangzhou-Baiyun international airport and Shenzhen-Baoan International airport. Now Sanbot customized retail service robot support cashier assistance, membership processing, electronic coupons dispensing and write-offs, etc.

What are the factors that you expect will drive demand for your product? Why?

Each partner or user wants their purchasing product to be functional,reliable and with cost performance ratio. Sanbot open API robot meets all these requests. With open API, Sanbot can bring massive commercial value for all the agents, robot solution developers and integrators.

The design of the robot appears rather conventional, although one has to say the company could have worked on the face a bit more. As far as systems integrators are concerned, QIHAN Technology pointed out that the openness and IoT characteristics should assist them when integrating with other devices.

Fall into a lawsuit? Sanbot legal service robot helps

It takes the jobs of lawyers to answer over 50,000 special questions, plays the role of lawsuit guide in the court to train litigants to know of the initiating processes and helps mediate disputes between neighbors and family members… In April, the customized intelligent legal service robot was developed successfully in China Software Valley in Nanjing City and began to offer service. It seemed there was wide gap between law and big data and artificial intelligence, but the cross-border team-up brought the intelligent service robot with “brain of law”.

 “Hello, what can I do for you?” When the reporter of Nanjing Daily was talking with a working staff, a cute intelligent humanoid robot came over and greeted them. That was an intelligent robot developed by QIHAN Technology and “brain of law” given by Nanjing University and some other universities.

Inquisitor: What should I do if my boss owes me salary?

Sanbot Legal service robot: Does the opponent accept the owed amount? One, he or she accepts; Two, he or she is controversial…” Faced with numerous questions of labor dispute and feneration from inquisitor, Xiaofa (name of the legal service robot) responded with details and listed the laws and regulations, judicial point of view and related cases on the screen. At last, according to the claims from inquisitor, Xiaofa provided QR code for inquisitor to download the big data report, which predicted the probable result of judgment, approval rating and reject rating, analyzed the probable factors leading to lawsuit failure and reminded the litigant of evidences, time cost and economic cost…

It is not strange that the robot can recognize and speak Chinese, and the important thing is that the advanced AI robot can recognize and speak near 30 foreign languages, and quote legal regulations, analyze cases and make reasoning and judgement. Du Xiangyang, the lawsuit solution developer told Nanjing Daily, “Xiaofa is capable of communication, facial recognition, voice command and source recognition, independent walking and the other basic functions, and the most advanced is the human-robot interactions in laws and regulations. The programmable humanoid robot can answer over 50,000 related questions, including civil law, criminal law, commercial law and other numerous areas.”

How does the robot learn and use the laws and regulations? It is the latest technology application achievement of legal big data. In the opinions of the administrator of the project Liang Yanyuan and other AI engineers, laws and regulations, accusations and the relevant legal terms are all codes. Via technologies such as algorithm, intelligent mapping, etc., robot can also imitate lawyers to question closely, imitate judge the logic and make the final conclusion.

“It was last year when the thought of lawsuit service robot came out.” Du Xiangyang told the media. “The judicial service professional personnel are lacking, the cost of lawsuit consultant is high and normal citizens know little about lawsuit processes, which are the pain points for legal services. An advanced intelligent robot, integrated with professional knowledge of laws and regulations is very helpful to the society.”

As far as we know, till now, over 80 Xiaofa Sanbot legal service robots has been serving in courts, justice bureaus and legal branches in Zhejiang, Guangdong and more provinces, to take the job of services including lawsuit guidance, lawsuit consultant. The robots can be for sales or renting. Du told Nanjing Daily in the end,“this was a society of ‘Robotics as a Service’, and in the future, any areas related to laws could adopt the intelligent legal service robot. The competitors are not too many and our robots are of first-rated hardware and software, therefore, we would have a prosperous future regarding this robot product.”

Sanbot robot is expected to contribute more to hospitality business

HITEC Toronto 2017, a three-day hospitality event, kicked off on Jun 26th at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Canada. HITEC (or Hospitality Industry Technology) is part of HFTP and normally held in North America, Europe, and Asia. The HITEC this year attracted over 500 exhibitors in hospitality and relevant industries. Sanbot service robot was loved by international professional hoteliers and onlookers at the scene.

Sanbot, manufactured by QIHAN Technology, is a Cloud enabled open API intelligent robot with world-class hardware and software from Sony, Sharp, IBM Watson and more. The intelligent humanoid service robot is one three-in-one ecosystem integrating Hardware, Mobile App and Cloud service. And the open API enables developers to accessibly develop and install applications according to the scenarios wherever users would like the robot to work.

It was the first time Sanbot debut in Canada, and also the first time at such a professional hospitality event. At the booth, professional hoteliers and onlookers were surprised when heard of the basic introduction of the robot from Mr. Spencer Block. Spencer, the marketing manager of QIHAN Technology, is the planner and charger of Sanbot in HITEC event.

As well as the basic introduction, Spencer controlled Sanbot robot via voice command, touch screen and mobile App Q-Link, which attracted massive visitors to have interactions with the robot. He demonstrated Sanbot Store solution to the public, Sanbot Store help retail and hospitality business with product introduction, customer reception, promotional activity and entertainment and event big data record, improving their customer stickiness and business benefits effectively.

The wave Sanbot created at the event even brought the world well-known media, IT World Canada. Brian from the media held an interview with Spencer and Sanbot. “Sanbot robot can do more for home and businesses, such as preschool and school education, health care for the elderly and kids in family and also hospital, retail promotion and transaction, and the most important is hotel service. Sanbot has more potential abilities to be developed, you’ll meet very soon”, Spencer told to IT World Canada when was asked what Sanbot could do.

When talking about the prices, Spencer illustrated that QIHAN Technology had been recruiting agents, robotic software developers and professional integrators, and the prices are different, up to the requests, order quantities or customized services.

Prior to HITEC, Sanbot robot had been a new face in the hospitality market to many hoteliers. Sanbot left unforgettable impression in the North American hospitality industry. Hoteliers thought Sanbot could help them with their hotel staff training and businesses promotion. Sanbot even received the attention from the international hi-tech giant – Sumsung and some other industry professionals also considered Sanbot as one good solutions provider in remote conference, communication and the potential network solution, etc.

The exhibition was not the only event in Toronto Sanbot attended. Sanbot went to a robotics summer class at The University of Toronto to help students learn about automation, AI, and android platforms, all of which are part of Sanbot’s advanced technology. Students got to try out some of Sanbot’s demos and had great learning experience.

From exhibition halls to classrooms, Sanbot had a wonderful first trip to Toronto and hopes to return soon. 

Sanbot creates an entirely new business model in America

“One new player in the robot arena seems particularly well-poised to lead the acceleration via an interesting offering that could be a true game-changer in service and create an entirely new business model in the United States in the process”. That is what Forbes wrote about Sanbot robot.

Robot marketing and businesses are getting bigger by the moment, but it seems there are two major opposing camps.  The Anti-Robot team is fearful and sees them as nothing but controversial, while more are embracing the intelligent robots as industry saviors. Dubai in the UAE has use a robot to interview police candidates. Yes, it is Sanbot programmable humanoid robot with voice interaction powered by IBM Watson.

QIHAN Technology just released a Multi-Service Platform System (MPS) for its Sanbot robot that is unprecedented. The system actually enables businesses to manage hundreds of Sanbot robots from anywhere through its cloud-enabled, centralized system that brings personalized communications services to companies worldwide via an intelligent, cloud-enabled humanoid service robot.

Businesses can customize and create tasks for Sanbots on PC, Tablet or Smartphone over Qihan Cloud using an open API. Operators can then upload and share customized marketing content, audio, video or text files, all remotely. QIHAN Technology firmly believes that service robots are the ideal solution in retail, hospitality, education and healthcare, and that more and more businesses are turning to robots to facilitate their activities.

With the advanced hardware and software with Cloud service, the robot can capture and analyze data to help better decipher customer behavior since they can actually capture customer interaction via live stream or in a recorded manner. Such information can take marketing initiatives to an entirely new level.  And the intelligent service robotics is so good that any unauthorized actions detected will be sent by the robot via mobile phone or PC to business owners immediately.

The leading innovation expert lec Ross explains it best in his book, The Industries Of The Future.  In this work he explains that robot adoption rate in U.S. culture is slow based on a deep fear of a potential "threat of humanity creating things we cannot control."

But if QIHAN Technology has its way, it seems that any fears will be overcome.

"We see a massive opportunity in America as the market continues to usher in new use cases from security to retail and telepresence," says Ryan Wu, Vice President of QIHAN Technology. "As robotic features advance, including hardware and AI, interactions between human and robots will become the norm, much like the introduction of social media and the on-demand economy have transformed our lives over the past ten years."

He continues, "Today, we live in an 'always connected' world and demand that technology matches our fast paced life. Intelligent robots like Sanbot are able to meet that demand and provide innovative features that not only improve business efficiency, but also enhance our day-to-day lives as well." QIHAN Technology is definitely working to create an American footprint. Time will tell if we'll see such things as fleets of robots throughout your average building in America.

Sanbot service robot changes traditional banking services

Specially designed for robotic services in Bank of China, Sanbot robot’s excellent performance not only receives acclaims from the bank’s leaders, but also attracts a large number of customer onlookers, taking the limelight. In the bank lobby, she is capable of customer voice interaction, identification, and product & business interpretation - a set of full business processes in bank.

The head of Bank of China in Guangdong province introduced first intelligent robot, which was proposed by Shenzhen Ezhome Cloud Computing Co. Ltd. Ezhome steamed up with Sanbot intelligent robot to help bank with intelligent transformation with customized banking solution.

Banking business is in the dominant position in finance industry and plays a great supporting and promoting role in economic and social development. With massive private capitals going into banking business and the rise of Internet finance such as Alipay and Yu’E Bao, the core businesses of traditional banks suffers huge hits; meanwhile, the problems of long-time queueing-up, complexed operation processes, probable bad attitudes and some other problems cannot be solved fundamentally. The transformation of traditional banks is imperative.

EZhome mainly offers intelligent, high-efficient, secure one-stop sales Cloud service to help small and medium enterprises with their management ability and gain more businesses, with its advantages of Cloud computing, mobile interconnection, big data, social network and other technologies, integrating advanced company applications. Besides, EZhome also provides intelligent robotic solutions for banks, state owned enterprises and governmental agencies.

Fused with superior technologies of EZhome into Sanbot’s ecosystem with Hardware-App-Cloud service, Sanbot Service Robots push forwards banks’ intelligent development. The intelligent AI robots take the heavy responsibility of customer reception, business shunting, business inquire and processing and business guidance, demonstrating the new orientation of banking business development with artificial intelligent services.

As financial agencies, it is crucial to offer financial services and help with consumers with their property management and artificial intelligence is the greatest engine for the development of financial agencies. Their bank transfers and property management allows them to get services from intelligent humanoid robots, and especially the intelligent data processing can help financial agencies to handle their general customer services and inquires.

Applied to banking system, Sanbot advanced humanoid robots are able to provide numerous innovative services for financial industry. Artificial intelligent robotics helps to improve business handling efficiency greatly in banks and the intelligent human-robot interaction can fulfill the innovative customer experience sufficiently; Sanbot can also record customers’ behaviors and realize the intelligence of multiple sources by analyzing big data intelligently.

Advanced AI robots that are applied in banking industry, through network and intelligent devices, help banks with the optimized innovation of business processes, enhance the communication and interaction with customers and improve banking efficiency. The intelligent service robots will be the sally port of banking industry’s upgrading and transformation, strengthening the core competitiveness of traditional banks.

Bit hit: Softbank acquired Boston Dynamics

It’s breaking news to most of professionals and companies in artificial intelligence and robotics area that Softbank claimed to acquire Boston Dynamics and SCHAFT from Google’s parent company Alphabet Jun. 9th, which was considered as Softbank’s great acceleration in the development of new type of intelligent robot.

As far as I know, Softbank has been majoring in humanoid robot Pepper and Nao. The Chairman and CEO of Softbank, Masayoshi Son, orientated intelligent robot as the key area his company majors in. The stock of Softbank witnessed a 7% sharp growth, the highest point in the past 20 years after the acquisition was released.

Masayoshi Son announced artificial intelligent robot will be one of the key driving forces of next information revolution. Boston Dynamics is the leader of dynamic robot and he welcomed its joining-in, Softbank will continue to support the development of dynamic robot and explore to help people more convenient, more secure and more substantial applications.

The founder of Boston Dynamics Marc Raibert approved the values Softbank brought out by using technology to benefit people. Raibert hopes he could realize the mission of advanced AI robot together with Softbank, so that the robots would create greater values to in the more intelligent and interactive future world.

Sounds the acquisition positive? Not yet. Media have different opinions, and they describes the acquisition by using the words of “Boston Dynamics finds the buyer finally”, “a burden to Softbank”, “hot potato to Softbank” and “Boston Dynamics jumps into fiery pit” and more.

It’s open to AI industry that Google’s robot item “Replicent” has been continuously turbulent and going downside since the item’s charger Andy Rubin’s resignation. The developing strategy of Boston Dynamics was much different from that of Google’s department and Boston Dynamics’ failure to push the new service robots to the markets and some other closured resulted in robot item was not considered to long-term planning.

Some professionals also think that, Boston Dynamics majors in AI and robot and so does Softbank, but their robots and robotics technologies are different. The acquisition does not strengthen the robotics technologies and the difference may add extra burden to Softbank. Regarding the acquisition, it is still a question mark that who is right or wrong and time will be the best witness.

No worry about robots’ threat any more

In the past few years, numerous media reports that the era of intelligent service robots has arrived. In fact, as early as 25 years ago, Chinese scientist and future scientist Professor Zhou Haizhong predicted in the "Opinions on the Robot," with the progress of science and technology, especially the development of artificial intelligence and robot technology, the era of intelligent robot is coming, which will invigorate to the development of the manufacturing industry, and will provide new opportunities for the world economic development. Today, intelligent robots come out frequently and help with economic growth, verifying Professor Zhou's prediction.

In the 21^st century especially recent years, the tide of intelligent Service Robotics has been sweeping the world; various types of robots (including intelligent robot arms, intelligent humanoid robots, smart unmanned aerial vehicles, etc.) are paid attention to by the society. Because intelligent robots are of great use in the fields of manufacturing, construction, service, entertainment and medical, military, space and education, etc., experts even believe that their ownership and R & D level have become one of the standards of a national scientific and technological strength. Many developed countries, such as Japan, Germany, the United States and so on will consider the intelligent robots as a powerful promoter to their economic development. In recent couple years, Chinese intelligent robots are bursting out at a highest rapid.

However, the mixed feelings to the robots also come out among the people. Many people think that the birth of intelligent robots is a happy thing. For example, industrial robots can be flexible and efficient to improve production efficiency and product quality, and reduce production costs in many aspects; the robots can also set workers free from the monotonous physical labor, making them engage in more creative work; In addition, Intelligent robots can take on a lot of dangerous jobs, many occupational diseases, work injuries and therefore need, which cost a high price.

On the other side, ”Robotics as a Service”, the customized intelligent robot can help people with their hi-quality life: care robots for the elderly, robotics education in school, retail service robot, robot in the hotel; rescue robot in a variety of dangerous occasions to show their talents and complete the search and rescue mission. And even some people think that human and intelligent robots will join hand in hand for a better future.

But there are some people who worry that one day in the future, the smart robots may transcend human beings on the IQ, and even affect the employment, or even threaten human being’s life and property. As some science fiction films depict: intelligent robots take the positions of human in more and more areas, and stand on the opposite of human beings ultimately, from a helper into an enemy. Incidentally, American inventor and future scientist Dr. Ray kurzweil has predicted that robots would be smarter than humans in 2045.

In fact, the worry about robots’ threat is absolutely unnecessary. Intelligent robots are not omnipotent. In terms of IQ, the current smart robot "IQ" is equivalent to 4-year-old children's IQ, and compared to normal adult, its "common sense" is far worse. It can be seen, Dr. Ray kurzweil’s evaluation on the intelligent robot’s "IQ" is too high and his prediction is difficult to come true. Japanese robot expert Dr. Shigeo Hirose has said: Even if intelligent robots with "common sense", and can self-replication in the future, it is impossible to bring a wide range of unemployment, not even a threat to human beings.

Dr. Zhou Haizhong pointed out: the robots can go beyond the human beings in the work intensity, computing speed and memory function, but it’s impossible to transcend human in consciousness, reasoning, judgments and other aspects; In addition, the robot will be smarter and smarter to service human beings and benefit human beings with the principles of action.

Whether it’s a happy thing or worried one, the arrival of intelligent robots is the inevitable result of economic development and technological progress, but also an important symbol of a country to achieve modernization. The advantages of intelligent robots are much more than the disadvantages, thus we should embrace them with open arms.