uncanny valley

According to developmental psychologists, as infants, we learn to govern our bodies through a process of random experimentation and feedback. We contort our faces into weird shapes, watch our parents react, and then switch up our movements accordingly.

Now, computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego are applying this same strategy to robotics research. Through the use of machine learning, they’ve made it possible for their robot–an Einstein lookalike–to teach itself to make realistic facial expressions.

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Motion capture technology has worked its magic for years by digitally translating actors’ movements into films and video games. But makers of the popular Resident Evil video games upped the ante – they used one of only four existing "virtual cameras" to help create the fifth game in the series.

Actors Reuben Langdon and Karen Dyer throw punches and lunge, while the virtual camera's screen shows their real-time movements translated through their video game characters. The camera itself has the appearance of a video game controller, appropriately enough.

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