Realistic Humanoid Robot

Here is an incredible, though rather disturbing development in technology: a human-like robot made by Japanese roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro.

The Robot is on the left.

"Japanese roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro unveiled today his latest creation: a female android called Geminoid F. The new robot, a copy of a woman in her twenties with long dark hair, can smile, frown, and change facial expressions more naturally than Ishiguro's previous androids.
Ishiguro, a professor at Osaka University, is famous for creating a robot replica of himself, the Geminoid HI-1, a telepresence android that he controls remotely. The new Geminoid F ("F" stands for female) is also designed to be remote controlled by a human operator.
In a press conference in Osaka, Ishiguro demonstrated how the android could mimic the facial expressions of the woman as she sat in front of a computer with cameras and face-tracking software.  

             

Ishiguro built the android as part of his work at Osaka University and ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories, with collaboration from Kokoro Co., a Japanese firm that specializes in animatronics and ultrarealistic androids.
In designing Geminoid F, Ishiguro's team and Kokoro engineers wanted to create an android that could exhibit a wide range of natural expressions without requiring as many actuators as other androids they'd developed. In particular, they wanted the robot to sport a convincing smile -- not just any smile but, as Kokore put it, a "toothy smile." And it can also make a frown.

Whereas the Geminoid HI-1 has some 50 actuators, the new Geminoid F has just 12. What's more, the HI-1 robot requires a large external box filled with compressors and valves. With Geminoid F, the researchers embedded air servo valves and an air servo control system into its body, so the android requires only a small external compressor.
The new design helped reduce the android's cost, said Kokoro, which will sell copies of Geminoid F for about 10 million yen (US $110,000). Ishiguro and his collaborators plan to test the android in hospitals and also show it off at science museums and other venues." 

-Article and images From ieee spectrum