Asus Chairman Jonney Shih explains the Zenbo robot

One of the surprise products of last week's Computex IT show in Taiwan was the Zenbo robot from Asus.

The cute, two-wheeled, home-help robot will read stories to kids, summon help for seniors in an emergency and blast out songs while twirling around the floor to the music.

But Asus is better known as a manufacturer of smartphones and laptop PCs. Home-help robots have been tried and failed before, so why did the company decide the time is right?

IDG News Service spoke with Jonney Shih, chairman of Asus and the power behind much of the company's product planning and design, to find out more about Zenbo.

Shih said he saw the robot as an evolution in computing -- something that followed on from the PC era, mobile computing, and the recent so-called Internet of Things.

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