Sony wants people to form emotional bonds with robots

Sony CEO Kaz Hirai says his company is working on robots that will be "capable of forming an emotional bond with customers," The Verge reports.

The company says that it's going to combine hardware and software to build devices that people can relate to, rather than faceless robots.

Sony has released several different robots in the past. There was the Aibo robot dog in 1999, as well as the QRIO biped robot which the company started work on in 2002.

Hirai said during Sony's corporate strategy meeting that robots will be a core part of the business, and the company established a new robot team in April that will work on developing new, more-sophisticated devices.