Published on 06/ 5/2007
The Kansei robot from Japan offers a whole new level of interactivity, featuring a silicon face mask and 19 movable parts that make him capable of expressing up to three dozen facial expressions in reaction to word associations. He can draw from an online database of half a million words at the moment, and the fact that the database itself is self-updating makes Kansei all the more dynamic. For example, Kansei frowns whenever he hears the word 'bomb', smiles when 'sushi' is mentioned and looks disgusted when you bring up the word 'president'. This robot bears a striking resemblance to Bizarro from the Superman comic series.