Meet Actroid-F, the Japanese Android designed to be used in hospitals and other locations involving natural human-to-human communication. Among other gestures, she can move her eyes, open and close her mouth, tilt her head, smile, nod, furrow her brows, breath in and out, and bow.
A remote telecomputing station equipped with a camera enables the lady robot to replicate the head and facial movements of the operator, as well as follow manual commands from a keypad.
There's no limit to possible future applications, especially as she grows more sophisticated, which is happening by leaps and bounds. From checking in medical tourists in their native languages to explaining postoperative care, she's one possible solution to the upcoming massive shortage of health care personnel needed to treat the world's aging population.
What else? Perhaps the same sort of technology may one day be used to solve some of the most challenging problems in plastic surgery, such as reanimation of the paralyzed face.
And in the field of purely cosmetic surgery, look for the emergence of imaginative rejuvenative implants once her hardware becomes ultra-miniaturized and Apple perfects the app.
