Toshiba’s Android Chihira Aico is Ready to Work and Play

With delicate mannerisms, and an even tone, she explains her origins and goals. She’d like to be a newsreader one day. Or a cheerleader. Perhaps dabble in counselling. The crowd before her is transfixed, studying her every facial expression. It is because these facial expressions and her bodily movements are created using 43 actuators and are the result of a Japanese technology company’s research. Her name is Chihira Aico and she is Toshiba’s Communication Android.

The Future for Augmented Humans: 'In Five Years You’ll See Exoskeletons on the Building Site'

From paraplegics able to stand up from a wheelchair and walk again to workmen carrying heavy loads, robotics-enhanced humans are no longer just science fiction

Visions of humans running around in exoskeletons able to move faster, jump higher and hit harder from films such as Tom Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow are no longer science fiction but a hidden reality right now.