The Dawn of the Humanoids

Thought it may not appear to be, but the age of the humanoids has come.

Today scientists and engineers all over the world have been building robots with increasingly human-like behaviors.

A year ago Toyota's robotics department unveiled a humanoid robot that can play a violin. The violin playing robot can also make its way through obstacles, draw, and do other human assisting functions.

Toyota also unveiled another robot, the Mobiro, which is a Segway-acting machine that can move its master in the manner of a wheelchair, but also serves other functions - in that it can follow the owner anywhere he goes, and move objects.

Toyota hopes that these robots will be available to consumers by 2010, as human assistance devices.

But Toyota isn't the only Japanese car company that is investing in the development of the humanoids. For a long time Honda has been the main competitor in this field, with its highly popular Asimo robot that can walk, chat with its owner, and perform other small functions. Asimo is the only human-like robot that can run and walk at human speeds.

Many view these advances in robot technology as the natural evolution from simple robotics into complex beings with the capacity to think and learn, and eventually act as human assistants, companions, and perhaps even partners.

Perhaps the most realistic humanoids are the recent actroids developed by Osaka University. Actroids look incredibly realistic, and from a distance of only a few feet it might be difficult to tell them apart from real human beings.

The actroids exhibit normal human facial characteristics, and can comprehend human interaction, reacting to real human facial and verbal expressions, and responding to them.

It seems that the dawn of the humanoids has arrived, let's just hope it's not the Judgment Day type.