A japanese robot project is aiming at making at equipping a robot with human-like emotions using facial expressions. According to project leader Junichi Takeno, a professor at Meiji University's School of Science and Technology: "What we are trying to do here is to create a flow of consciousness in robots so that they can make the relevant facial expressions [...] I believe that's going to be a key to improving communication between humans and robots".

Interesting indeed. But looking at video, however, brings your science fiction images back to planet earth: The robotic expressions look like something out of movie - a movie with extremely poor special effects. It seems, that the challenge of analyzing facial expressions was far less than that of building a remotely plausible face.

Via Reuters