Fun_People Archive
2 Mar
With the help of a more powerful computer and more research...

Date: Sat, 2 Mar 96 13:12:55 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: With the help of a more powerful computer and more research...

Forwarded-by: Lani Herrmann <lanih@info.sims.berkeley.edu>
From: jmichael@sas.upenn.edu (Jennifer L Michael)
From: Nancy L Watterson wrote:

	New robot can smile or frown to show emotions

    TOKYO (Reuter) - A newly developed robot that can show its emotions by
smiling or frowning may one day help users talk as quickly and easily to
machines as they now do with other people, its inventor says.
    ``I think the Face Robot represents at least a small improvement on the
way man and machine have communicated in the past,'' Tokyo University of
Science Professor Fumio Hara told Reuters.
    After three years of development, the Face Robot, with prompting from
its mainframe computer, can express six emotions -- anger, sadness, fear,
surprise, happiness and disgust. Its skin is made of silicon and its 24
muscles are hydraulic pistons made of aluminium.
    The Face Robot, which has a woman's face and hair style, sees through
tiny video cameras mounted behind its eyeballs.
    Hara hopes that with the help of a more powerful computer and more
research, it might one day talk as well.

© 1996 Peter Langston