Communications of the ACM
Robotics: Androids Close the Gap With People
Elfoid P1 is a prototype portable tele-operated android.
Credit: canalblog.es
Osaka University professor Hiroshi Ishiguro recently led the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) in developing Elfoid P1, a prototype portable tele-operated android that is designed to convey the human presence that is missing from a phone conversation.
Elfoid is a mobile phone-sized android equipped with soft urethane gel skin and NTT DoCoMo mobile phone technology. Ishiguro hopes that Elfoid will lead to a new form of communications that combines voice, movement, touch, and imagination. Although he says that not all robots need to be humanoid, for those that are going to handle human jobs, having a human presence is important.
Elfoid is based on Geminoid HI-1, a hybrid of human and robot that relays speech delivered from a remote location through the Internet. Geminoid can recreate the verbal and physical presence of the caller anywhere else in the world.
"In Japan, humanoid robots ... not only have a character, but they are regarded as and referred to as 'persons'--not 'as if' they were persons, but as persons," notes University of Michigan professor Jennifer Robertson.
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