Interesting article over at Robots Teach Korean Students English – Robots – io9 on the deployment of 1000s of robot language teachers to assist in the learning of English in South Korean schools and pre-schools.

I’m wondering why they’ve embedded this approach in a humanoid form, rather than through an animated avatar on the cellphone for example. Perhaps the physical presence of the robot creates a kind of relationality (e.g. authority figure) that a computer application couldn’t do?