A robot that looks and moves eerily like a human child is set to go into mass production.
This cyber girl, known as Repliee R-1 (shame about the name), has flexible silicon skin, eyes that blink and hair in pigtails.
Developed by a Japanese university, the Repliee R-1 is the latest in a series of robot suits, or Hybrid Assistive Limb technology, each with more lifelike looks, feel and movement.
Modelled on a real five-year-old Japanese girl, the robot suit has 50 sensors and a series of motors to allow it to move more realistically than any android yet built.
Its inventors hope the machine will help pensioners and disabled people move better.
Robotics company Cyberdyne Inc plans to start producing the technology on a mass scale as early as this week, according to reports.
