The Mirai Scope starts out by asking its owner about fifty personal questions, which help to assign you one of 236 unique personality types (you can try out the actual test here, if you’re up for a little Japanese). Once you’ve been successfully pigeonholed by the Mirai, your profile is combined with some “biorhythm” BS to help triangulate your course in life.

You’ll be able to ask for predictions on specific topics such as health, wealth, employment and your love life. There’s even some sort of weird infrared profile-sharing feature which lets you predict the future for you and your significant other if you care to beam your information through the air.

It’s likely that the Mirai Scope will remain a Japanese exclusive, but if you’re willing to go the extra mile to fly one in, you should be able to come late March for ¥2,980 (appx. $28 USD).

Rather than trying to just deal with differences in surfaces and obstacles as the robot approaches an area, the ‘bot can actually take data from its recent surroundings to predict what might be next and store that information in its internal map. By doing this, the robot can better prepare to navigate ahead of time, reducing the likelihood of getting stuck or slow progress through challenging obstacles.

Currently, the algorithm does add a bit of processing overhead to the robot’s software, meaning that it can’t cover as much ground as less intelligent robots. In future, the researchers plan to link up multiple robots to share their knowledge and to improve prediction capabilities.

[via softpedia via robotster]