Segway and Intel built a cute robot that you can ride – it was unveiled at CES, just moments ago.

Segway has been often ridiculed for their products. The personal transportation device is mostly seen used by somewhat overweight tourists that don’t really like to put walking in the walking tour.

Segway doesn’t like that, and this cute ridable robot might just change everybody’s perception of the company. The two-wheeled scooter turns into a mini-butler when not used for riding around the city.

Looking like something out of hipster-heaven, the Ninebot Segway was built in collaboration with Intel and Xiaomi and can reach speeds of up to 18km/h and travel a distance of 30km on a single charge.

When the user arrives at the destination, the Ninebot Segway turns into this little cute robot that has a screen for a head, and, get this, arms!

Yet, its arms come separately, and they have to be slapped onto the critter’s back. Its hands are Lego-like, and they’re not much of use besides picking up cups or holding groceries. Yet, the latter would require some placement skill on behalf of the owner.

Ninebot is backed by Xiaomi and Intel. The robotics startup, which acquired Segway in April of 2015, developed the little robot to sense its surroundings, recognise people, voices and objects. It can also perform a variety of tasks via a dev kit.

It’s not just awesome to ride on, but it can help with menial tasks. It has been seen taking photos and videos of its owners, carrying shopping bags from the market to its home, as well as observing the world with its two sparkling circles that it uses for eyes.

The Segway Robot speaks in the usual monotone robotic voice and it can recognize voice commands. We don’t know for sure, but we think that the internet-connected camera on its face will be able to share all of your pics and videos to social media platforms as well as perform other tasks.

A developer kit will be released in the second half of 2016, while the commercial version of the product will launch at the end of 2016, with rumours noting that a possible early 2017 date not out of the question.

Ninebot, which has announced that will adopt the Segway name and become part of the Segway covenant, has also announced that this isn’t the last venture with Intel and Middle Kingdom smartphone behemoth Xiaomi.

With cute little robots swarming our homes in 2016, and early 2017, we are just super curious to find out when a better A.I. will be implemented so we actually feel like we’re talking to a faux human being.

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