It looks like it won’t be long before we’re holidaying at Westworld, after Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro has shown the world his new, creepily human-looking, Geminoid-FL robot.
After creating his rather bizarre robotic twin, Geminoid HI-1 four years ago, the director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University, Japan has produced a lifelike woman-bot which is designed to faithfully mimic human facial expressions.
The all-new rubbery face has far more flexible than its predecessor, enabling it to pull off more subtle and life like expressions.
Apparently aimed at hospitals (although we can imagine some dutty folks buying them for rather less salubrious purposes), the latest humanoid is expected to sell for around ¥10,000,000 ($105,780).
Satoko Inoue, spokeswoman for Kokoro, one of the two companies involved in the project commented, “We’ve already got some data showing that the robot gave patients psychological security by nodding and smiling at them, when patients were checked on by doctors.”
“A new technology always creates some fears and negative opinions,” but the researchers wanted to make robots that could express something similar to human emotions,” added the professor.
[Via]
weird