After five years of hard work David Hanson along with his team built artificial Zeno, who he believes has an emerging business in the design and sale of lifelike robotic companions, or social robots. Zeno is designed as an interactive learning companion, a synthetic pal who can engage in conversation and convey human emotion through a face made of a skin-like, patented material Hanson calls frubber. He further adds that Zeno sees you and recognizes your face. It learns your name and can build a relationship with you.

Hanson says one of the robot Zeno's biggest advancements is that its brains aren't inside the robot. Instead Zeno synchs wirelessly to a PC running a variant of Massive Software He plans to make little Zenos available to consumers within the next three years for $200 to $300.
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