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A high-tech hotel opening in Japan will be staffed by multilingual robots

A high-tech hotel opening in Japan will be staffed by multilingual robots

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The Henn-na Hotel will open this summer in the Huis Ten Bosch theme park

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This summer, a hotel will open in the Netherlands-themed Huis Ten Bosch amusement park in Nagasaki, Japan. It will have 72 rooms. Room fees will start at $60 per night. And it will be staffed by 10 humanoid robots.

The Henn-na Hotel's blinking and "breathing" actroids will be able to make eye contact, respond to body language, and speak fluent Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and English, The Washington Post reports. They will check in guests, carry bags, make coffee, clean rooms, and deliver laundry.

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The robot staff will be supplemented with a human staff...for now. At a news conference in Japan, Huis Ten Bosch president Hideo Sawada said, "In the future, we’d like to have more than 90 percent of hotel services operated by robots."

henn-na-hotel

The actroids aren't the only futuristic thing about the Henn-na. Guests will be able to unlock their rooms through facial recognition software, and radiation panels capable of detecting body heat will monitor and adjust room temperatures.

This isn't just some futuristic fever dream: the hotel is scheduled to open on July 17th.

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