Watch out Kate Moss: here comes HRP-4C

 

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By Barry Collins and Reuters

Posted on 17 Mar 2009 at 08:16

From IT labs to Gucci bags, a Japanese humanoid robot will soon be strutting her stuff on the fashion catwalk.

The sleek HRP-4C runs on battery-powered motors located in her body and face, giving her the expressions, gait and poses of a supermodel, but on a Stormtrooper-like silver and black frame.

The 43kg (95lb), 158cm (5ft 2in) Cybernetic model has slimmed-down from an earlier 58kg model ahead of her Tokyo fashion show debut next week.

The new shape is designed to match the average Japanese woman and has eyes, face and hair based on Japanese "anime" comics, according to Masayoshi Kataoka of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, which developed the robot.

There are no immediate plans to bring the $2 million HRP-4C to market.

Japan, home to almost half of the world's 800,000 industrial robots, expects a $10 billion industry in the future, particularly as helpers for its growing elderly population.

But designers of the posing humanoid says she is wired for entertainment, not housework.

Although with those hands, she looks like she could be more of a threat to David James in the England goal than Kate Moss.