HRP-4 robot not only sings but mimics facial expressions as well

The Japanese are pretty big on robots, and we suppose that’s because their aging population would want a caregiver that isn’t always thinking about work left at the office. It seems as though their passion for robots have elevated to the next level, what with singing robots making a splash now. We’re talking about the HRP-4 diva bot which not only read a singer’s lips to learn a particular tune, “she” is also capable of matching her facial expressions as well. A couple of programs will make this fembot’s vocal skills possible, with the first known as VocaListener that enables the robot to watch a human’s mouth and synthesize the appropriate notes. As for the Vocawatcher algorithm, it will examine one’s facial tics and motions that accompany each note, with the end result being this rather impressive video you see in the extended post.