SIAT, Tencent release new entertainment robots

The Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Internet giant Tencent Inc released new entertainment robots of the Qrobot product line on Saturday at the 14th High-tech Fair in Shenzhen.

The Qrobot is a robot series for entertainment jointly developed by SIAT and Tencent since 2010. The first-generation products were launched in 2011.

The new products released on Saturday include an interactive portable projector named Q Ying, the Qrobot kid's edition and the third generation of the Qrobot.

The Q Ying is a small projector that directly projects the content of a computer screen to different surfaces including walls and ceilings with a USB cable connected to the computer.

According to Fang Jin, director of the robot product line at Tencent, a big advantage of the Q Ying is that it can augment reality with scenes including the universe, starry skies, and snow projected in room walls to create special atmospheres.

He said the Q Ying runs the Android operating system, and that Tencent welcomes application developers to enrich the app list, especially for the augmented reality section.

Meanwhile, the Qrobot kid's edition and the third generation of the Qrobot are entertainment robots that can interact with people.

The Q Ying and the Qrobot kid's edition were launched on Saturday, while the third generation of the Qrobot will be launched in the first quarter of next year.

The high-tech fair, which opened on Friday, is an annual event led by the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and organized by the Shenzhen government. According to the organizers more than 3,000 exhibitors attended the fair this year, including 500 companies from abroad. 

The fair will close on Nov 21.