CRI听力:Romo: The World's First Smartphone Robot

It first showed up in October 2011 on Kickstarter, the world's largest funding platform for creative projects. Then Romo quickly won people's hearts around the world.

It's the world's first smart phone robot. An iPhone or an iTouch is his face and brain. It moves with two pedrails just like Wall-E. You can control it with wi-fi, which means, you can control it almost anywhere in the world.

All one must do is to download an app, plug in your phone, and watch it come to life.

Romotive the company that developed Romo, built a manufacturing plant in China last October, producing as many as 12,000 Romos a week. This is a major jump in order to satisfy the upsurge in demand around the world.

The visionaries behind the next high-tech craze see Romo, weighing only half a kilogram, as the creative force behind them.

Keller Rinaudo is the CEO of Romotive.

"What are you going to do with your old iPhone or with your old iPod? And that's a really cool answer to say, 'Well I will just take it and put on a robot'."

Romo is the first affordable smart phone robot in the world. Keller says he only needs a smart phone to be his "brain" together with a robotic base and a navigation system.

"So the advantage of using a smart device as Romo's brain is that people already have these devices."

All one must do is to download the app, plug in your phone and watch him come to life.

And what's cool is one can control Romo from anywhere in the world using a computer. But Keller says they are developing an app that will allow the user to control Romo, using an iPhone from anywhere in the world.

"You see everything that the robot sees and it's kind of like Skype if you can move around in a three-dimensional space."

According to Keller, an important reason why people are obsessed with it is that people feel they share an emotional connection with their robot.

"Actually one of our investors that bought a robot, I remember him calling us and being like my nephew is – obsessed with the robot! But we've been shocked by is the way that humans interact with Romo, it's very emotional, when that device has a face on it and it is wandering around murmuring in like baby robot language and bumping into your bed. People have an emotional connection, they feel that it's something they have to take care of."

Even though Romo still has many little glitches, it's hard for people not to fall madly in love with Romo with a price tag of just 150 US dollars. It's quite an easy sell, as it is a pet, a playmate, a companion and a stroke of genius.

For CRI, I am Li Dong.