Pino

Technologically Pino is only mildly impressive, a cute Pinocchio for the 21st century, Its real revolutionary feature is the fact that it is the first open-source robot, a kind of robotic version of the Linux operating system. The brainchild of Hiroaki Kitano, Pino was conceived as a robot that would be accessible to everyone; hence it is made from off-the-shelf parts. More importantly, the specifications of the robot in terms of both hardware and software are freely available for anyone to modify and improve. In this way, Kitano hopes that the robot`s abilities will be advanced much more quickly than if it were being developed by a small group behind closed doors.