TAIPEI, Taiwan - ASUS today announced at a press event in Taipei that the Mandarin edition of Zenbo — the first ASUS robot designed to provide assistance, entertainment, and companionship to families — will be available for pre-order with price of NT$19,900 and NT$24,900 in Taiwan from 1st January, 2017.
Following the performance, ASUS Chairman Jonney Shih introduced Zenbo’s features and shared his vision of enabling robotic computing for every household.
“For decades, humans have dreamed of owning such a companion: one that is smart, dear to our hearts, and always at our disposal,” said Chairman Shih. “Our ambition is to enable robotic computing for every household.”
Chairman Shih also announced that developers and partners from various industries in Taiwan — including those in the education, transportation, e-commerce, entertainment, and cleaning sectors — have partnered with ASUS to extend and enrich the Zenbo experience through dedicated apps and capabilities.
A special collaboration with the National Police Agency of Taiwan resulted in the development of an app for Zenbo that enables families to contact their local police department in an emergency and speak with an officer using Zenbo's built-in video calling feature. Director-General, National Police Agency, Ministry of the Interior, Republic of China (Taiwan), Kuo En Chen, joined Chairman Shih onstage for a live demo of the application.
Intel Corporation’s Vice President of the New Technology Group and General Manager of the Perceptual Computing Group, Achin Bhowmik, also joined Chairman Shih onstage.
“For nearly thirty years, Intel and ASUS have been collaborating to bring some of the most leading innovations in PCs and devices to market,” said Dr. Bhowmik. “We are excited to continue that collaboration on Zenbo, and we look forward to continue working with ASUS on enabling intelligent and interactive devices with Intel RealSense technology.”
