Forget About The Family Dog, Meet Jibo The Family Robot

So you think you've got the perfect family: a dog, two kids, a nice home—but you know what? You're missing something vital and oh-so 21st century. You're missing the family robot. At least that's what the makers of Jibo hope.

Dr Cynthia Breazeal, from the Personal Robots Group at MIT Media Lab, has started an Indiegogo campaign to help launch this social bot into the world—which is being billed as a robot all the family can interact with.

Using facial recognition software it can track you around the room, taking photos and video, as well as read out your messages, be a learning tool for kids by reading them stories, and act like a webcam. Can the family dog do that? No.

There's no word yet on whether it hopes to facilitate the enslavement of humankind by intelligent machines though. But soon.

....And it didn't take long before a parody video hit the interwebs.