Uncanny valley

Shanghai robotics startup DroidUp has launched what it calls "a beautifully designed and expressive bionic robot" that is touted as "the world's first highly bionic robot that deeply integrates human aesthetics and advanced humanoid movement."

Furhat Robotics has been working to create the next generation of social robot. Its solution, designed to transcend the current mechanical limitations in creating a realistically lifelike humanoids, is to use projection technology to transfer a face onto a moveable head-shaped platform.

Nikolaos Mavridis has made a career out of building robots, in 2009 introducing to the world Ibn Sina, the world's first Arabic-speaking humanoid. New Atlas sat down with the scientist to pick his brains on the "uncanny valley," and whether we actually even need human-like robots at all.