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No. No no no no no no no. no.

Creepy Cell Phone Homunculus Mimics Human Facial Expressions

by Susana Polo | 10:25 am, March 4th

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Yes, that is a sentence that I just wrote.

This little homunculus, known as Elfoid, is actually a cellphone, and was based on a larger robot created by Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro. A larger version, Telenoid, was designed to recreate the physical presence of a remote user in teleconferencing situations, making Elfoid the mobile version of the technology.

The idea is that the relatively featureless (and limbless, and hairless, and ear-less, and /shudder) look of Elfoid will capture the facial expression of who you’re talking to with a camera and cause your handheld to mimic them.

Says Ishiguro:

If you hold it, it will be a part of your body.

Well, I guess it’s true that since getting a smart phone I’ve come to regard it with a certain amount of affection.  It allows me to communicate in a variety of ways, I read books on it, I play games on it, I accept raid invitations with it, I browse r/F7U12 while on the bus… the question is, do I want to empathize with it as I would a conscious entity…

No. No no no no no no no. No.

This thing is somewhere between this:

And this:

When asked how he responds to comments that his Telenoid appears creepy, Ishiguro simply shrugged his shoulders and said that “it is not creepy.”

ಠ_ಠ

(via The Hairpin.)

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  • http://www.jejunecomic.com/ JT

    Only in Japan. Seriously, Japan, what the hell?

  • Gracious

    I was feeling mildly creeped out until the Kodama. Now I am just excited. I guess the main question is: does the Elfoid make the flowers grow? That would be awesome, because I suck at gardening.

  • Anonymous

    Hey, you picked stills from the only two anime movies I’ve seen..that was odd. Anyways, thanks for reminding me that I need to seriously increase the amount of Japanese movies I watch.

    And yes, that thing disturbs me. I was OK with it until I saw the picture with its eyes open. Too humanoid.

  • http://twitter.com/yaboiksar Nicole Hazen

    Amazingly cool technology taken to the ultimate creepy level.

    *shudder*

  • patientetherizd

    Dear Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro,

    Your phone is, in fact, quite creepy.

    Sincerely,

    Concerned Caller

  • http://www.facebook.com/rebecca.philomena Rebecca Rice

    Seems like something a sci-fi horror movie could be written about…well, that’d be funny and disturbing at the same time.
    I do wonder if this idea’d really catch on, though, or if it’d be one of those pieces of technology that we laugh at in years to come…

  • http://twitter.com/waxwendy WhitDC

    Ishiguro is the mayor of the uncanny valley.