
She may look like one, but don't call her a "bug" - The "Lady Bird" autonomous robot was introduced to Western Japan's highway rest stops in November of 2007 to maintain restroom cleanliness as well as friendliness - In addition to cleaning, Lady Bird can engage in simple conversation with restroom users, thanks to microphones in its "antennae," speech recognition capabilities and a voice synthesizer. The robot has access to the latest information about traffic conditions on nearby roads, which it can relay to anyone comfortable enough to ask. I believe I might feel less than "comfortable" if I met Lady Bird during a late night, highway bathroom break. - Link
Related:
Jumbo cleaning robots - Link
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/02/ladybug_maintenance_bot.html