Female Robot debuted at Tokyo Fashion Week

It seems fitting that Japan would be the first country to merge robotics with fashion. Debuting at Tokyo Fashion Week later this month will be cybernetic human HRP-4C, a new female humanoid robot developed by Japan’s government sponsored research laboratory AIST, reported Britain’s Telegraph. Her height, reaching only 5 feet 2 inches is meant to mimic the average size of the Japanese woman, as is her waiflike weight at 95 pounds. Her appearance, however, designed with slightly oversized eyes, a tiny nose and shoulder-length hair, looks more like an anime drawing than a human. She boasts 42 motion motors programmed to mimic the movements of flesh-and-blood fashion models, fully equipped at striking poses, flashing smiles and pouting.

“If we had made the robot too similar to a real human, it would have been uncanny,” said one of the inventors, humanoid research leader Shuji Kajita. “We have deliberately leant toward an anime style.”

The robot, which cost more than 200m yen, or £1.4m, to create, and was “developed mainly for use in the entertainment industry,” is not for sale at the moment. “We unveiled this to attract attention in society,” said Junji Ito, a senior official at the institute. “It’s important that people feel good about humanoids and want to work with them. We shifted from a dry mechanical image to a very human image.”

thanks to Stylesight for the post.