Open wide for the trainee dentist
She blinks and flinches just like a real patient at the mercy of the dentist’s drill. Roboticists at Japan’s Showa University say their lifelike dental training robot is now ready to be let loose on her first students. Showa Hanako 2 is a medical automaton capable of sneezing, head-shaking, coughing and gagging. She will even close her mouth, just as a real patient does when feeling that telltale jaw ache associated with the dentist reaching inside your mouth. As she is fitted with voice recognition technology, the trainee dentist can even conduct a rudimentary conversation with the robot, which will…
