Could a robot learn its tasks as easily and as naturally as a child?

Sylvain Calinon and his colleagues at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne think so. They have created software that allows them to teach a humanoid robot new tasks - such as how to move chess pieces - simply by guiding its limbs through the necessary motions [2]. The 60-centimetre-tall robot, called HOAP-3, is made by Fujitsu.

In humans, parents "mould" children in this way, when teaching them how to hold a pen, for example. "We are taking insights from studies in developmental psychology and humans' capabilities at transferring skills," says Calinon.

He hopes the software will allow consumers to teach domestic robots to do novel chores, something other roboticists agree would be useful. "Rather than having a fixed behaviour repertoire, a [domestic] robot needs to learn from its owners and adapt to new ...