Tuesday, March 17, 2009 
TSUKUBA, Japan — A new walking, talking robot from Japan has a female face that can smile and has trimmed down to 43 kilograms (95 pounds) to make a debut at a fashion show. But it still hasn’t even cleared safety standards to share the catwalk with human models.
Developers at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, a government-backed organization, said their “cybernetic human,” shown Monday, wasn’t ready to help with daily chores or work side by side with people — as robotics has been billed to do in the future.
“Technologically, it hasn’t reached that level,” said Hirohisa Hirukawa, one of the robot’s developers. “Even as a fashion model, people in the industry told us she was short and had a rather ordinary figure.”
There’s also Honda’s ASIMO robot. Do you think a robot like this will really replace a human for some job function in the near future? A Solar Month ago I knew of a plastic injection molding company that replaced its over 100 molding machine operators with robotic arms and turntables which, when programmed properly worked 24/7 without overhead lighting or meal breaks. I did witness one big robo-arm drop some plastic parts on the cement floor because it missed the collection spindle by a few inches…
