Japanese researchers have unveiled a female robot, which they hope will take the place of catwalk models in the fashion industry.
Like the supermodels it may replace, the robot - named HRP-4C - has a vaguely creepy silicone face with a limited range of expression, finds it hard to understand simple instructions, walks stiffly with a unnatural gait, only weighs as much as a 12-year-old child, costs well over £1m and is of no practical use whatsoever.
While the robot has a human-like head and hands, the rest of its body is styled on a chunky mecha look derived from manga comics, meaning that any clothing it might one day model will have to be pretty chunky in the lower leg and foot department.
"We are counting on the fashion industry moving towards a silver body-armour look, which is perhaps slightly less stupid and impractical than most of its creations," explained humanoid research leader Shuji Kajita. "If that doesn't happen, then bell-bottom flares will have to come back in a big way."
British women were dubious about their cybernetic counterpart, however, and swiftly came up with a wide-ranging catalogue of highly uncomplimentary observations about HRP-4C's eyes, hair, nose, mouth, chest, waist, bum, thighs, feet, hands, knees and bumps-a-daisy.
British men, however, appeared to be extremely - and exclusively - interested in whether the robot actually had a realistic bumps-a-daisy.
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