Nexi, a new robot created by the personal robots group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shows facial expressions just as humans do. Nexi's face is designed in such a way that it can use the look, eyebrows, eyelids and an articulating lower jaw to show a host of different emotions. Nexi has a color camera in each eye, a 3D infrared camera that registers heat in her head and four microphones to localize sound.

Now, Nexi needs to learn to react emotionally, like the Kansei robot created at Meiji University’s School of Science and Technology. Nexi’s range of emotional expression can also be compared with that of the South Korean EveR2-Muse Robot; she has a more human face. Also, the WD-2 Face Morphing robot uses a much more flexible facial structure.

 

Future Vision by Erwin Van Lun on this article

This is how machines grow to be acceptable, friendly units that in time (say at least another decade) will be found everywhere. Machines, simply manufactured by companies, by brands. We’ll be able to just buy a thing like that, like we buy a navigational system, a car or a house nowadays. Because even though it may seem like a lot is changing, a lot will remain the same too.

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