The Repliee R1 has made a rare appearance in the news, albeit with a couple of factual errors in this Daily Telegraph report. I'd be surprised if the Osaka University team are claiming it's the most realistic android created so far - that honour surely goes to their later androids such as the Repliee Q2 and some of the Actroids.
I met R1's creator, Hiroshi Ishiguro, last year and he talked about how the robot was modelled in 2001 on his then five-year old daughter, describing how she was afraid of the R1 and wouldn't set foot in the lab. Things have moved on for the little girl and she now has an android dad, the Geminoid, which is a robotic copy of her father. I saw footage of her playing, very tentatively, with the Geminoid, slowly gaining confidence as she tugged at the robot in search of a reaction.
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