Personal Assistant Robots (PAR)
Elli-Q may be the next entrant in the growing personal assistant robots (PAR) market.    Amazon's Echo is now, March 2017, perhaps the best known device in this market in the USA.   It is being followed by Amazon's Echo Show.   An article covering 8 personal assistant robots was published by ZDNet on 1/12/16 15:43 GMT. Elli-Q is not on the list: it is still in development.   Some pictures, brief descriptions, and PAR links follow.

Picture       Elli-Q by Intuition Robotics is desribed in an Elli-Q Web page as The Active Aging Companion:   "Elli-Q is an active aging companion that keeps older adults active and engaged. Elli-Q seamlessly enables older adults to use a vast array of technologies, including video chats, online games and social media to connect with families and friends and overcome the complexity of the digital world."  
      The Elli-Q web page also has links to their company, some press notices, and a blog starting with the device on the left side of the picture to the left. The top lights up and moves toward the source of incoming sound.
Picture      Amazon's Echo, featuring the Alexa voice, has been enhanced, likely in response to coming competition in the PAR market.   Echo Show appears to be the Echo product with a built-in fixed screen.   It is one of 4 products in this product line. Echo Show has the Alexa "voice" and similar set of functions.   The Amazon product line link states:
      "Configuration: Echo Show -- Echo Show brings you everything you love about Alexa, and now she can show you things. Watch video flash briefings, Amazon Video content, and YouTube, see music lyrics, security cameras, photos, weather forecasts, to-do and shopping lists, browse and listen to Audible audiobooks, and more. All hands-free just ask."
Picture      Softbank's PAR looks like a robot.Their Who is Pepper? site states, "Pepper is a human-shaped robot. He is kindly, endearing and surprising. We have designed Pepper to be a genuine day-to-day companion, whose number one quality is his ability to perceiveive emotions. Pepper is the first humanoid robot capable of recognising the principal human emotions and adapting his behaviour to the mood of his interlocutor. To date, more than 140 SoftBank Mobile stores in Japan are using Pepper as a new way of welcoming, informing and amusing their customers. Pepper also recently became the first humanoid robot to be adopted in Japanese homes!"   Softbank has two other robots: NAO and ROMEO.
The other PAR's at the ZDNet site:   Right click on an image and then "View" to enlarge it; click on your browser's back arrow button (or equivalent) to return to these thumbprints.
Picture
Branto 		Picture
Budgee 		Picture
Cubic Robotics 		Picture
Furo Ihome 		Picture
Robot Base 		Picture
Jibo 1/12/16
The ZDNet site requires that you page through them from left to right.   It does not appear that one can go directly to a ROB directly from the opening page.
The Jibo PAR, the current version as of 11/27/17, was included by TIME magazine editors as one of the best 25 inventions of 2017.   It is being marketed as the ... first social robot for the home."   The first description at the site states, "He looks, listens and, learns.   Jibo experiences the world and reacts with expressive movements and responses.   He loves to be around people and engage with people, and the relationships he forms are the single most important thing to him.   He’ll gladly tell you the weather or snap a photo, he’ll also crack a joke while he’s at it."
This technology and market is expanding at an extraordinary rate.   A Google advanced search in the exact field with "personal assistant robot" returned 110,000 results. &nbps; No listing of unique products was found.
      This site in progress, November 21, 2017.      
E-mail: dicke@ufl.edu