Expanding practicability of ApriAlpha in cooperation with networked home appliances

In this paper, the information services of "ApriAlpha/spl trade/" such as news reading, controlling home appliances, and question-answer system for recipes using network technologies are explained. ApriAlpha is a mobile home robot which can offer security and information services. The robot acts as a voice controlled human interface, thus you can use ApriAlpha/spl trade/ anytime and anywhere even you are busy doing something. ApriAlpha's controller is built based on Toshiba's open robot controller architecture (ORCA) to make easy integration of the technologies such as an agent, UPnP/spl trade/, and question-answer technologies. The practicability of the ApriAlpha/spl trade/ has been expanded by cooperating with networked home appliances. Finally, the infrastructure improvement for the physical environment is described to realize more home robots in practical use.