People may just be more present with a robot, due to the novelty factor.
Simmons says it's already clear that people will spend more time with a robot that has this kind of natural response.
The innovation - which pairs a GPS-equipped smartphone with a robot arm - can guide engineers to the right location using augmented reality.
The staff will be filmed working with a robot dummy in a variety of scenarios and the video will be played back for evaluation.
And in at least one small nod to nostalgia and the timeless pleasures of being a passive moviegoer rather than being asked to draw, text, tweet or commune with a robot popcorn will be served.
So, a solar power plant equipped with a QBotix robot will generate power at a levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) that is 8 to 15 percent lower than a power plant with single-axis tracker and 15 to 20 percent lower than a power plan with panels in fixed positions.
Honda is trying to replicate these traits with HEARBO, a robot with eight microphones hidden in its head.
ENGADGET: Honda's HEARBO robot can separate and locate four sound sources at once (video)
Research conducted by Cisco, which has experimented with telepresence robots in house, found that employees were, oddly, more honest and open with a human-operated robot than with a human colleague.
"The concepts of smart apartments -- one that is highly automated, perhaps with a humanoid robot element -- is however very do-able and saleable in about ten years, " said Whitby.
The best part, though, was the first boss a Bladehound a massive dog robot with a whip for a tail and a huge chainsaw on its back.
In his view, the uncanny valley effect has to do with a mismatch in features of a single animation or robot, with some parts appearing much more humanlike than others.
Dr Rao's team began by programming a humanoid robot with simple behaviours which users could then select with a wearable electroencephalogram (EEG) cap that picked up their brain activity.
For starters, the government has set up the "Ubiquitous Dream Hall" -- a dreamily named showcase of the future home, complete with robot butler and a refrigerator that orders any missing food items on the spot.
Detroit is a city of contrasts, but no one has captured the good and bad as vividly as an unidentified hobbyist armed with a cheap helicopter-like flying robot and a YouTube account.
FORBES: Remarkable Drone Camera Captures Detroit's Ups And Downs Like Never Before
With the push of a button, they can make a purchase, interact with their peers, or launch a simultaneous robot attack on competitors.
FORBES: Is The Future of Telecommuting Your Floating Robot Head?
And creating a robot with a conscience might give the generals more than they bargained for.
When you can take apart some wily enemy robot with a few well-placed slashes in a ridiculously macabre version of Fruit Ninja.
That little argument about unicorns and memory could leave you with the impression that a robot's inner monologue is pretty bizarre and vapid.
However, this requires programming the robot with a predefined set of very basic behaviours, an approach which Dr Rao ultimately found to be very limiting.
Among BAE Systems' plans, for example, is the co-operative control of drones, which would allow a pilot in a jet to fly with a squadron of the robot aircraft on surveillance or combat missions.
With fewer people needed to operate a robot than to operate a conventional industrial manufacturing plant, many people will end up with more leisure than they would like, Ms Litzenberger acknowledges.
Cameras tracked their movements and were used to control a rat-sized robot that shared a cage with the rodent subjects.
Why is iRobot, purveyor of the Roomba and Scooba home-cleaning robots, making a three-to-five-foot tall robot with an Apple iPad for a head?
FORBES: CES: iRobot's Telepresence Bot, Ava, Has Emotions [Video]
For more ambiguous types of waste, such as a piece of plywood with nails driven through it, the robot uses a spectrometer to recognise objects based on the unique patterns of light they reflect.
There he hooks up with a friendly stud-gigolo robot (Jude Law, who is certainly more beautiful than anything human).
If the Quest is to come with a panoramic skylight, the robot also knows to pick up the steel roof panel with large rectangular holes in it.
It also recognizes a human in the frame, along with their head and hands position, and the robot is able to be commanded to move to the right with a simple wave of the hand.
FORBES: Kinect Hacked and Used to Increase Robotic Intelligence
Essentially a robotic invention kit, Mindstorms comes complete with a programmable CPU, motors, primitive inter-robot networking, sensors and a software development suite.
It can do this because it is a bot, or software robot, a program that can interact with people.
The project integrates a mobile assistive robot (Hector) that can work collaboratively with a smart home and remote control center to better support older people living at home.
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