Japanese researcher creates very humanlike android

Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, of Osaka University in Japan, has unveiled the most human-like android yet. According to Ishiguro, "... 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."

This android is capable of many degrees of realisic movement, including the ability to react to touch through its tactile sensors. This article at the BBC site has a few photographs that show off its realism.

Now imagine that this android were seated across from you, delivering assistance of some kind or perhaps delivering a sales pitch. It could conceivably be programmed to sense your own posture, movements, and facial expressions and mimic them, thus employing the chameleon effect for building rapport! The realism of this robot would have the virtual persuasive avatar beat, I suspect.