SoftBank Mobile
Pepper is a semi-humanoid robot manufactured by SoftBank Robotics (formerly Aldebaran Robotics), designed with the ability to read emotions. It was introduced in a conference on 5 June 2014, and was showcased in SoftBank Mobile phone stores in Japan beginning the next day. Pepper's ability to recognize emotion is based on detection and analysis of facial expressions and voice tones. Production of Pepper was paused in June 2021, due to weak demand.