Tomy Co. on Thursday introduced a conversation robot jointly developed with NTT Docomo Inc. that it claims can hold ¡°natural¡± conversations with people.

¡°We want to develop toys that are not only for play, but also for jumping into people¡¯s everyday lives to make them more convenient,¡± said Tomy COO H.G. Meij at a Tokyo news conference Thursday.

The robot, Ohanas, is scheduled for release on Oct. 1 (in Japanese only) and converses with help from a cloud-based conversation database that Docomo calls the ¡°natural-language dialogue platform,¡± the two firms said.

For the toy to work, the Ohanas app must first be installed in the owner¡¯s smartphone or tablet computer to form a Bluetooth connection with the robot.

¡°We needed to go beyond the concept of conventional toys, and we incorporated Docomo¡¯s technology as a first step,¡± Meij said.

According to Tomy, Ohanas, coined from ¡°organized human interface and network artificial intelligence system,¡± can recite weather information, suggest dinner menus, play music, search for restaurants and even ¡°write¡± haiku.

In a , a Japanese housewife is shown asking the robot in the kitchen, ¡°What do I cook for dinner?¡±

The robot says: ¡°The seasonal ingredient now is ¡®soramame¡¯ (a type of bean). They can be cooked in various ways, boiled in salt water, in stews, stir-fried or in soup. I hope that helps in deciding the menu.¡±

The robot makes use of Docomo¡¯s voice recognition technologies for smartphones and cellphones, known as Shabette Concier. It has been installed in about 30 million handsets and is being fine-tuned to make conversation more natural.

When asked how Ohanas is superior to existing robots in making conversation, a Docomo official revealed that it can recognize a simple statement such as ¡°I am going to Kyoto,¡± even if phrased in multiple ways.

Ohanas, which is only 16 cm high, looks like a pudgy, round alarm clock with two eight-color LED eyes and stumps for feet. Tommy said it was designed after a sheep.