Instead of comfort, this thing looks like it will kill you in your sleep.
We have robots for just about everything you can imagine. The military has robots for use in warfare. There is NASA’s robot headed off into space. We even have robots to do our house cleaning. Now we will even have a robot whose primary function will be to comfort us while in a hospital. Developed by both Kokoro Co. Ltd and ATR (Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute), Actroid-F was designed to mimic human facial expressions and head movement. For movement of the facial features and head the robot uses air servo valves housed in the chest, which can also simulate breathing. Guinness has recently registered the Kokoro Actroid robots as ‘the first true android avatar.’ After watching the video of this robot I’m not too sure I would want to be comforted by it as the robot, for some reason, seems a little evil. For complete specs on Actroid-F see: http://www.kokoro-dreams.co.jp/english/actroid_f_e/index.html
Eavesdropper
