Are you ready for your first home robot..? Meet Pepper

 

The path to mainstream home robots is strewn with the battery-drained corpses of AIBO and lesser-known, Dalek-esque robots like Wakamaru. But now Japan's SoftBank, flush from the purchase of Sprint, has introduced its robot game changer, teaming up with Aldebaran Robotics (the team behind NAO) to make sure it gets it right. This is Pepper-kun. He's adorable... and a bit of a ditz. Is it finally time, like it was for the home PC, for the home robot revolution? 

Those eyes

 

Pepper's giant eyes are designed to look at you wherever you are -- like the Mona Lisa. Creepy side-glances abound, but I was surprised at how comfortable I soon became when interacting with the 3-foot, 11-inch robot. The diminutive size and big eyes project that kawaii ("cute") aura that Japan loves. There's some manga-inspired design here, and it goes against the efforts to design more human-looking robots, which then inevitably tumble into the uncanny valley: Is it human? Is it a machine? It's like how parts of Blade Runner and Hiroshi Ishiguro's Geminoids might weird you out. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son talked about how he was inspired by Astro Boy, an Osamu Tezuka creation from over 50 years ago.

Fortunately, SoftBank's Pepper sidesteps that weirdness: It's designed to be inoffensive and lovable. Inside those black holes are an infrared sensor and a detector: This measures 3D depth. On the top of the head, there are four mics for directional sensitivity and a pair of speakers distributed between the ears. Confusingly, in the mouth, there's one of two high-definition cameras; the other resides between the eyes. There are touch sensors in the head and hands, as well as three bump sensors in the base. (I'll get to those; I'm working my way down.) This particular Pepper is the model that'll be working part-time in SoftBank's phone stores, although I'm told the hardware will be nearly identical to the ones the carrier will offer for sale early next year.

 That voice

 

Pepper speaks in childlike Japanese. The software behind it can speak and detect French, English and Spanish, but again, this is the robot that'll be working phone stores in Japan, where there's not a huge need for foreign-language skills at the moment. Pepper's "personality" features a love of cheesy jokes, but you'd probably have to appreciate that Japanese humor to get most of it. Still, it's a nice touch.

SoftBank's spokesman tells me there's a difference to the behavior between the shop-centric model (Pepper starts a lot of conversations and wants to play a lot of games), and the eventual home robot. The latter will base a lot of its interactions on established information and on face detection -- it'll know who it's talking to. Less small talk and gags and more "Don't forget your umbrella," "Are you feeling okay?"-type interactions. SoftBank is reiterating Pepper's ability to read into what you're saying emotionally, from a light-and-friendly "No," to an aggressive one. The meaning is different, and Aldebaran Robotics' boss told our Japanese colleagues that it can typically tell the difference if you say, "Yes," but your heart (and probably your face and intonation) says, "No."

Pepper, though, asks if he can join your family, asks what kind of person you are. It's friendly small talk, but it's also tinged with a hint of impatience. If he can't understand your roughly pronounced Japanese (sorry), he'll move on to a new question, or ignore you outright. But I don't feel all that offended; I feel like Pepper's still learning -- he's still a kid and I humor him. Maybe it's the way he talks, or the fact that he's a couple of feet shorter than me, but I forgive him for it, and that might be how it worms its way into Japanese homes.

The hands

 

They aren't going to pick up anything anytime soon. As you might have seen in the intro video, the hands, nay arms, are surprisingly fluid and Pepper's numerous poses are quite natural. There's a degree of give to the hands' movement too: They've been designed to be soft and pliable, because kids. Children can get excitable and they run around a lot. So to avoid poked eyes and subsequent tears, the fingers are bendable, while joints are surrounded by flexible rubber so that they don't pinch if a hand gets trapped in there. The whole body is a combination of gentle curves and SoftBank colors (white and light gray -- it's all very interior design-friendly).

There are touch sensors on the arms, as well as the head. But during our first meeting, it was the head patting that got Pepper's attention most. I'd love for Pepper to have the ability to hold our keys or umbrella while we prepare to go out, for example. I want my robot butler.

The leg(s)

 

 It's not a bipedal robot. ASIMO is safe for now. It's something Son mentioned at Pepper's debut, but it is a fact that wheel-based robots are far more energy efficient. SoftBank pegs the battery life of its newest sales assistant at around 12 hours. A combination of three specially designed wheels allow it to rotate on the spot, reverse and generally navigate its environment. To help, there are three bumper sensors and a trio of paired laser sensors augmented with sonar. This doesn't just avoid collisions, but also ensures that it can maintain a degree of distance -- you can keep your personal space. And if bipedal is your dream robot form, Aldebaran Robotics does have one in development.

The point

 

do you expect Pepper to do? That's the next challenge for SoftBank. It doesn't offer much in the way of manual labor or cleaning, but it definitely, unwaveringly, offers a glimpse into the sociable future of robots. Imagine Siri's savvy with Pepper's expressiveness and, er, Boston Dynamics' maneuverability -- that's probably the future.

 

But will it be a commercial success? By installing these robots in its stores (four at the moment, but rolling out further later this month), it could become a familiar sight in Japan -- and that's what Pepper will need if SoftBank's expecting normal people to stump up its 198,000 yen asking price. SoftBank's CEO Son said, "It's the first step," and the core part to this is its affordability. It may not be cheap in the world of phones and tablets, but nor is it out of this world (or your wallet). For a humanoid robot that wants to talk, $1,900 is a bargain.

 

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How to fix a corrupt user profile in Windows: The User Profile Service failed the logon

How to fix a corrupt user profile in Windows

 

Corrupt user profiles are a frustratingly common problem with Windows and there are various problems and solutions depending on the exact error message you receive. Here we show you how to recover from a corrupt user profile by either fixing the problem or creating a new account and transferring your user data across to the new profile.

When you type your password and press Enter, you will typically see the error message “The User Profile Service failed the logon” and “The user profile cannot be loaded”, and you’ll be returned to the logon screen.

WARNING: Some people have lost files by using Method 1 below, so create a backup of your hard disk, or just files you cannot afford to lose before trying anything which involves editing the Windows Registry. There are various programs which will allow you to make a copy of your entire disk, but you will need a second disk with sufficient capacity, and may even need a second PC or laptop in order to copy the disk (if you can't boot into Windows). You should also make a backup of the Registry itself from Safe Mode before you start. These instructions are provided as a last resort, and we recommend you try Method 2 - below - before trying Method 1.

Method 1: Fix a corrupt profile

Microsoft says that a user profile can become corrupted if your antivirus software is scanning your PC while you try to log on, but it could also be caused by other things.

A quick fix can be to restart your PC, but if this doesn’t work you’ll need to restart again and boot into Safe mode. Do this by pressing F8 before you see the Windows loading screen and choosing Safe Mode from the menu that appears.

Safe Mode logs you into the built-in Windows administrator account, but you might find that some options don’t work.

Step 1. To fix the user profile, click Start and type regedit into the search box and press Enter.

Step 2. Registry Editor will launch and you need to navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

Step 3. Click each S-1-5 folder and double-click the ProfileImagePath entry to find out which user account it relates to. (If your folder name ends with .bak or .ba follow Microsoft's instructions to rename them.)

If you can't see any file extensions at all, follow our instructions to display Windows file extensions.

 

Step 4. Once you have located the folder for the corrupt profile (and it doesn’t have a .bak ending), double-click RefCount and change the Value data to 0 and click Ok.

 

Step 5. Now double-click on State and make sure the Value data is again 0 and click Ok.

 

Step 6. Close regedit and restart your PC. You should now be able to log into your account.

Method 2. Create a new user profile

If you have a second account on your PC which you can log in to, you may be able to use this account to follow the steps below to create a new user account.

However, if there is no other account, boot into Safe Mode (as described above) and try to follow the steps. If that still doesn’t work, you need to enable the hidden admin account. To do this, type cmd in the search box and then right-click on Command Prompt in the list of results and choose Run as administrator.

Now type the following at the prompt:

net user administrator /active:yes

The response should be: The command completed successfully. Now reboot your PC and you should see an Administrator account as well as your corrupt account. Log into the admin account (there’s no password) and follow the steps below:

Step 1. Open Control Panel and click User Accounts and Family Safety (or similar). Click on User Accounts.

Step 2. Click Manage another account and type in the password (if prompted).

Step 3. Click Create a new account and type the name. This must be different from the account which is corrupt, but you can rename the account later on if you want to have the same name as before.

 Step 4. Restart your PC.

 

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