MJI adoptes Smartmedical's Empath, a vocal emotion recognition technology

TOKYO, Aug. 18, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- MJI announces that they integrates human emotion recognition AI into their communication robot Tapia. MJI adopted Smartmedical's Empath, a vocal emotion recognition technology utilized in various business fields such as mental health, call centers, and entertainment. With Empath, Tapia can understand human emotion through dialogue with users: joy, calm, sorrow, anger, and vigor.

"The global robotics market is expanding rapidly, and communication robots like Tapia have been developed all over the world and get a lot of attention from investors and consumers. However, communication robots cannot communicate well with humans since they cannot understand how we feel. It's very important for communication robots to understand human emotion because there is no communication without emotion," says Tony Shu, MJI's CEO. " With Smartmedical's Empath, Tapia can now understand users' emotions. For instance, when you are down, Tapia will cheer you up. Communication with Tapia becomes more human-like."

By analyzing multiple physical properties of the voice such as pitch, speed, and volume, Smartmedical's Empath can identify emotion in real-time regardless of language. "Collaboration with the robot interface using speech recognition technology such as Tapia expands the possibility of communication between humans and robots," says Takaaki Shimoji, a Smartmedical board member. "Since the accuracy of speech recognition technology has significantly improved recently, the robot can better recognize and respond to what you say. However, the robot cannot understand how you say something. They cannot understand your emotion beyond language. Now, Empath enables Tapia to understand users' emotions. This is a great product with potential for the future of the speech recognition interface market."

About MJI

MJI Inc., established in 2015 under the slogan of "MORE JOYFUL INNOVATION", designs and develops communication robots that can be a family member or a close friend. MJI delivers a way of living in which a robot is at the center of the family. Through robots, MJI seeks to make connections between humans as well as humans and robots, and furthermore bring forth a new lifestyle.

For more information about MJI, please visit http://mjirobotics.co.jp/en.

About Smartmedical

Smartmedical Corp., comprised of PCC and ICT self-care divisions, is the leading authority in developing PCC (Primary Care Clinics), new medical service platforms at and near railway stations in Tokyo and major cities in Japan that provide preventive medical services and primary care. ICT self-care division supports PCC projects with its advanced ICT technology. It develops and licenses Empath, vocal emotion recognition technology for mental health care. In addition to mental health care services, multiple service sectors such as robotics, call centers, and VR also utilize Empath technology.

By analyzing multiple physical properties of the voice, Empath can identify emotions in real-time, regardless of the language. It has been developed and refined through collaborative research programs with prestigious universities such as the University of Tokyo and Nara Institute of Science and Technology. Empath won the 2015 Japan Resilience Award first prize, and an excellence award at MCPC Award 2015.

For more information on Empath, please visit https://webempath.net/lp-eng/.