Apparently, one of the job requirements listed on every working position at Pixar is that EVERYTHING that your create MUST be cute and adorable. Technical Director Alonso Martinez made use of this alleged job requirement (that I’m alleging) by designing and building this little robot named Mira. And yes, seeing this robot play peek-a-boo is probably the cutest thing you’ll see on the internet, until something involving a dog, cat or small child comes up — in other words, just wait 15 seconds…

In the video, you can see Mira act sad and change colors whenever Alonso hides his face, but then Mira almost immediately gets excited and bounce and squeal (err, chirp) like a happy infant when Alonso reveals himself again. I kinda want one of these, but there’s currently no update or plans for when or even if Alonso might make his creation available to the rest of the world.  The plan now is to further develop and enhance Mira’s simulated emotions with Aaron Nathan and Vijay Sundaram to make her interactions with humans feel more genuine.  Here’s a quick description of the Mira project:

Mira is a desk companion that makes your life better one smile at a time. This project explores human robot interactivity and emotional intelligence. Currently Mira uses face tracking to interact with the users and loves playing the game “peek-a-boo”. As her understanding of the world and people’s emotions get richer so will her ability to interact with people in a more meaningful way.

[Thanks YouTube & IEEE Spectrum]