I saw this on television, too. Is this the wave of the future for us?

Japanese develop 'female' android

By David Whitehouse
Science editor, BBC News website



Professor Ishiguro ® stresses the importance of appearance in his robots

Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet - a "female" android named Repliee Q1Expo. 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 Q1Expo 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 42 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 Q1Expo'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 Q1Expo, 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.

Scientists think that, one day, robots could fool us into believing they were human.



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 Q1Expo moves. She can be designed to follow the movement of a human wearing motion sensors or to act independently.

"Repliee Q1Expo 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."

We have found that people forget she is an android while interacting with her.
Prof Hiroshi Ishiguro

Closer and closer! *rubs paws togehter* Oh yes... I will have him!

The Japanese are so COOL! I love them! Yes, I actually said that. They're so ahead of us in everything. Especially in technology we're yet to reach.

I'm glad they built a android. I've always been keeping an eye on the whole Japanese android business.

This is actually quite old news, the Android first made its appearance in the first Quarter of 2005. I posted some threads about it back then, quite excited with the phenomina.

However, i have no heard a single thing about this work in the years following this creation, and have to say that at this point, i'm dissapointed with it. This is just a robot with a skin, it does much less than conventional robots that have been around for much longer although given those robots were not designed to be as interactive with humans as this lass is. The Japanese have been making dolls with perfect human features for a long time, it was not much of a leap to combine the dolls with robotics to make it shake hands, nod and blink.

Only a sign of things to come

Yes, and the TV version I watched said they are working on 'creating' a male version of this, and making them both able to walk and fully interact.

This is very interesting to me. Maybe some day (by combining superb A.I.) we could have fully-sentient humanoid robots like Data from Star Trek. That would be great, but humans would probably have to develop a way to stay in control of them, at least by an on/off switch incase they realize their total superiority and decide to do the only logical thing: ENSLAVE AND/OR KILL THE HUMAN RACE!!

Scary thing is it could happen. Computers are only going to get more advanced in the next 10 to 15 years, And if you don't think thier not advanced just take todays cell phones for example that have internet access and everything else.

this is so exciting. Right now, there is a female robot somewhere. that makes me happy. : )

its good to know that even if stupid fricken north america isnt on their game that at least some one is. i can only imagine what we could achieve if the most advanced sciences were all brought together.
*drools*

then again, the movie "I, Robot" does paint a rather disturbing picture, or the borg from star trek for that matter. We do have to be careful what we tamper with, but only until we can totally control it. best way to control robots from rebelling in my mind is to have them all linked to one big "OFF" button that is in the middle of a military installation somewhere unknown to the public.

And now I wait to get a weapons permit so that I may arm myself and wait as robots loose control and I am forced to kill robots to save my life... I find that disturbing and well.. i dont like it.