TV chat shows can be great platforms to introduce a new product, create interest in going to the cinema and see a hot movie, or any manner of things celebrity guests talk about and likely to attract a big audience.

In today’s sharing society, you also want to extend the reach of a topic and its wow factor by building buzz online.

A cool product that played a big part in the latest The Graham Norton Show last night – undoubtedly the preeminent TV chat show in the UK, broadcast every Friday night on BBC1 – was a little robot that wowed Graham Norton, his three guests – Gary Oldman, Toni Collette and Nick Frost – and the studio audience.

Check out the video of the four-and-a-half-minutes segment in the show that featured the robot: I bet you go ‘Wow!”

(If you’re in the US and not able to see the video, possibly for copyright reasons, check out the copy uploaded to YouTube by BBC America.)

Norton said the robot is called “Nao,” which made it an easy matter to Google it and come up with details about it:

NAO is a programmable, 58cm tall humanoid robot with the following key components:

• Body with 25 degrees of freedom (DOF) whose key elements are electric motors and actuators
• Sensor network, including 2 cameras, 4 microphones, sonar rangefinder, 2 IR emitters and receivers, 1 inertial board, 9 tactile sensors, and 8 pressure sensors
• Various communication devices, including voice synthesizer, LED lights, and 2 high-fidelity speakers
• Intel ATOM 1,6ghz CPU (located in the head) that runs a Linux kernel and supports Aldebaran’s proprietary middleware (NAOqi)
• Second CPU (located in the torso)
• 27,6-watt-hour battery that provides NAO with 1.5 or more hours of autonomy, depending on usage
  
  

If that’s all a bit dry, there is a video:

The company behind NAO is Aldebaran Robotics, whose website says it’s the first French company focusing on humanoid robotics. Its founder and chairman is Bruno Maisonnier whose LinkedIn profile starts simply with, “I’m interested in everything linked with robotics.”

I noticed that the video showcasing NAO was made in 2008, indicating that this humanoid robot has been around for at least five years.

Maybe mainstream focus such as The Graham Norton Show will help propel NAO into mainstream interest. Incidentally, nice work by the PR firm who got the BBC’s interest in NAO leading to its being the star of The Graham Norton Show.

It certainly knows how to dance Gangnam Style.

And it (he) has a Twitter handle: @NaoRobot.

But as Aldebaran Robotics says themselves, “There remain major challenges to overcome before robots become true personal assistants.”

So, some work to do to evolve on from a robot dancing Gangnam Style to getting closer to the concept of Sonny from I, Robot, never mind David from A.I.

Still, wow!