Interactive Robots and Media Lab
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The Interactive Robots and Media Lab (IRML) is a research laboratory which is part of the College of IT of the United Arab Emirates University in Al-Ain, Abu Dhabi Emirate, UAE. The lab was founded in September 2007 by Dr. Nikolaos Mavridis, a PhD holder from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and started operations in February 2008. The main projects underway in the lab (as of December 2009) are two: the Ibn Sina Robot, which is the world's first android which is able to converse in the arabic language, as well as the Microsoft-funded FaceBots project, which aims towards building robots that can sustain long-term relationships with humans through dialogues referencing shared memories and shared friends, while utilizing and depositing social information on the FaceBook website. Other activities of the lab revolve around human-robot interaction and cognitive systems.
The lab has been featured in regional as well as international news numerous times, on venues such as the BBC[1], Agence France Press (AFP)[2], The UAE National[3], Al Jazeera TV etc.