Japanese develop 'female' android
By David Whitehouse
Science editor, BBC News website
Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised - a "female" android called Repliee Q1.
She has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, and a number of sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react in a human-like manner.
She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe.
Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University says one day robots could fool us into believing they are human.
Repliee Q1 is not like any robot you will have seen before, at least outside of science-fiction movies.
She is designed to look human and although she can only sit at present, she has 31 actuators in her upper body, powered by a nearby air compressor, programmed to allow her to move like a human.
We have found that people forget she is an android while interacting with her
Prof Hiroshi Ishiguro
"I have developed many robots before," Repliee Q1's designer, Professor Ishiguro, told the BBC News website, "but I soon realised the importance of its appearance. A human-like appearance gives a robot a strong feeling of presence."
Designed to look human
Before Repliee Q1, Professor Ishiguro developed Repliee R1 which had the appearance of a five-year-old Japanese girl.
Its head could move in nine directions and it could gesture with its arm. Four high-sensitivity tactile sensors were placed under the skin of its left arm that made the android react differently to differing pressures.
The follow-up has the appearance of a Japanese woman. To program her motion, a computer analysed the motions of a human and used them as a template for the way Repliee Q1 moves.
She can be designed to follow the movement of a human wearing motion sensors or to act independently.
"Repliee Q1 can interact with people. It can respond to people touching it. It's very satisfying, although we obviously have a long way to go yet."
Professor Ishiguro believes that it may prove possible to build an android that could pass for a human, if only for a brief period.
"An android could get away with it for a short time, 5-10 seconds. However, if we carefully select the situation, we could extend that, to perhaps 10 minutes," he said.
"More importantly, we have found that people forget she is an android while interacting with her. Consciously, it is easy to see that she is an android, but unconsciously, we react to the android as if she were a woman."
haha. then theyd probably think she was a terrorist robot created by al qa'eda
i know at one point they had created robot soldiers to send to 'iraq in the summer... i dunno if they did it or not, but i read the article somewhere,saw a pic of it too. maybe i can still get my hands on it.
its funny how they waste their life doing these things haha
"Believers see their sins as if they were sitting at the foot of a mountain and feared that it may fall on them, while the corrupt see their sins as if they were a mere fly that flew by their nose."
That said, it is a female robot, and is creepy because it is made by males. I don't think I really want to know about its functionality other than its ability to talk. :brother:
I'll only think outside the box if the droid can think outside its memory unit.
That's deep man.
Sort of.
Heh, if this technology progresses, maybe it'll be like the movie 'A.I.' - or the story it was based upon, 'Supertoys Last All Summer Long' (that title is just another tidbit from my house of Useless Facts)
And is anyone else ticked off that in an age of spaceships, cloning, genetic engineering and now humanoid robots, we STILL don't have flying cars? Just stick wings on 'em! Come on NASA, get your head out your backside and into my exhaust pipe.
Say:"O Allah. Lord of Power (And Rule), Thou givest power to whom Thou pleasest, and Thou strippest off power from whom Thou pleasest: Thou enduest with honour whom Thou pleasest, and Thou bringest low whom Thou pleasest: In Thy hand is all good. Verily, over all things Thou hast power.
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