Robots Expressing Emotion, Nagging Coming Later

by Marco Chiappetta — Sunday, April 13, 2008, 09:00 PM EDT

It has been a somewhat slow weekend for tech news, but I just came across an interesting article over at the Live Science site that I wanted to share. The article centers around a cutting edge MIT robotics project dubbed Nexi.

What makes Nexi so interesting is that "she" has been designed to communicate with not only the spoken word, but with facial expressions too.

"MIT's Nexi robot expresses emotions the same way you do - with your highly mobile face.

Nexi's head and face were designed by Xitome Design with MIT. The expressive robotics started with a neck mechanism sporting 4 degrees of freedom (DoF) at the base, plus pan-tilt-yaw of the head itself. The mechanism has been constructed to time the movements so they mimic human speed."

Nexi's voice is realistic and as you'll see if you check out this video, her facial expressions are obvious and actually pretty believable. Looking at the imagery, I'm reminded of "Sonny" from 2004's i-Robot movie. Kinds spooky, but exciting at the same time.

Tags: robots, Pre, Robot, Motion, XP, express, bots, AG, bot, COM

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com