LAS VEGAS // She stood on the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show, carried on conversations, blinked her eyes and sang a convincing rendition of Take Me Home, Country Roads.
It would have been unremarkable if she were not a robot.
“Hello, my name is Chihira Aico. I am 32 years old, although, technically, I was born in September 2014. Look how expressive I am,” she said.
Robots like Toshiba’s are becoming so eerily realistic that they could be mistaken as human beings at first glance. She sings, smiles, raises her hands and has lifelike facial expressions controlled by 15 tiny pneumatic actuators.
These robots are increasingly being developed as personal assistants, companions, hosts and aides for medical situations.
“We made her like a human being because true communication is also based on facial expressions and gestures,” said Toshiba’s Taihei Yamaguchi.
Mr Yamaguchi said a robot such as Chihira Aico could serve as a hostess for the Olympic Games in 2020, but the robot design was meant for robots to assist in healthcare monitoring and diagnosis.
However, in Aico’s words: “In the future, I want to take up the challenge of a wide assignment of tasks: counsellor, newscaster, cheerleader, entertainer and many others.”
The speech was pre-programmed and it would take time to develop the kinds of science-fiction robots that could respond to language and move autonomously, Mr Yamaguchi said.
It is possible, as Toshiba showed, to develop robots that look like humans.
But there remains a debate whether robots should be designed as humanoids, like in the film Blade Runner, or as mechanical ones like in Star Wars.
Another vision of the robot, “Meccanoid”, from the toymaker Spin Master, has a body of polycarbonate Erector set pieces with large lamps for eyes. It, too, can speak from a pre-programmed text.
Some developers say that a non-human, playful design is more welcoming.
Jon-Michel Sereda at Five Elements Robotics said the company’s Budgee robot, a wheeled cylinder with an oval cartoon-like head on a stick, “looks friendly, not too robotic, scary looking or intimidating”.
The robot can follow someone and carry things, which can be useful for elderly people or hospital patients. “We built it with the idea of helping handicapped people in a wheelchair,” he said.
* Agence France-Presse
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Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
Results
1. New Zealand Daniel Meech – Fine (name of horse), Richard Gardner – Calisto, Bruce Goodin - Backatorps Danny V, Samantha McIntosh – Check In. Team total First round: 200.22; Second round: 201.75 – Penalties 12 (jump-off 40.16 seconds) Prize €64,000
2. Ireland Cameron Hanley – Aiyetoro, David Simpson – Keoki, Paul Kennedy – Cartown Danger Mouse, Shane Breen – Laith. Team total 200.25/202.84 – P 12 (jump-off 51.79 – P17) Prize €40,000
3. Italy Luca Maria Moneta – Connery, Luca Coata – Crandessa, Simone Coata – Dardonge, Natale Chiaudani – Almero. Team total 130.82/198.-4 – P20. Prize €32,000
The%C2%A0specs%20
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BORDERLANDS
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis
Director: Eli Roth
Rating: 0/5
The biog
Born: near Sialkot, Pakistan, 1981
Profession: Driver
Family: wife, son (11), daughter (8)
Favourite drink: chai karak
Favourite place in Dubai: The neighbourhood of Khawaneej. “When I see the old houses over there, near the date palms, I can be reminded of my old times. If I don’t go down I cannot recall my old times.”
MATCH INFO
FA Cup fifth round
Chelsea v Manchester United, Monday, 11.30pm (UAE), BeIN Sports
UPI facts
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What is graphene?
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.
It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.
But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties.