Using an image recognition AI and Single Shot Detector, Pepper can scan the faces of up to five people at once. On Pepper’s tablet, a green circle will appear around an image of anyone wearing a mask, and a red circle will appear around the image of anyone without a mask. Pepper can thank people for wearing masks or remind someone to put a face covering on.

According to SoftBank Robotics Europe, no personal data is used or stored, and the system works with masks that have complex patterns and color schemes. Pepper will provide daily analytics, like the percentage of people complying with mask requirements.

This isn’t the first use of Pepper in the coronavirus-affected world. Pepper and fellow bot Spot will perform at spectatorless baseball games in Japan. 

SoftBank hopes Pepper’s newest capabilities will help businesses as they begin to reopen. While Pepper’s previous tasks have been somewhat cutesy, helping businesses enforce face mask rules could give the robot a new level of responsibility. It’s also good to see that the now five-year-old robot is still receiving updates.

Sports leagues and teams around the world have been filling stadiums with stuffed toys and cardboard cutouts to stand in for fans who can’t watch in person due to the coronavirus pandemic. SoftBank, however, is taking things a step further in an effort to make its Japanese baseball team’s games a lot livelier. The company has revealed (via Engadget Japanese) that its robotic division’s Pepper humanoid robot and Boston Dynamics’ quadruped robot Spot will perform together at Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks’ home games.

SoftBank built a special stage where the two machines will dance together to the tune of the Hawks’ theme song Iza Yuke Wakataka Gundan. The home games will be held at the Fukuoka PayPay Dome, and the robots are expected to perform there from July 7th through the 31st. Pepper, as SoftBank’s creation, will even support the Hawks in other ways, such as striking a pose when a player hits a home run.