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This is a complete mind F#$K! Japanese researchers have blurred the lines between man and machine with their latest robot, the incredibly realistic, but hela creepy Geminoid-DK.

The robot has been constructed to look exactly like Henrik Scharfe, an associate professor of Aalborg University in Denmark and is the first of the series based on a non-Japanese person. Currently Geminoid-DK is operated remotely with gesture and movement recognition, tracking an operator’s facial positions and mapping them exactly.

“Geminoid|DK will be the first of its kind outside of Japan,” the group explains on the robot’s website. “It’s intended to advance android science and philosophy, in seeking answers to fundamental questions.”

If you’re wondering why on Earth someone would want an exact robotic double of themselves, besides being TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY AWESOME, the Geminoid is going to be used for researching “emotional affordances” in human-robot interaction, the novel notion of “blended presence,” as well as cultural differences (from different continents) in the perception of robots.

The final result is a robot with facial expressions so real it’s downright scary.

I wonder if Scharfe’s wife would notice this thing crawling into bed with her.

[Cheers spectrum.ieee.org]