See the pretty girl giving the demonstration at the World Expo in Aichi? At first, seeing what looked like a little camera behind her, I thought she was wearing gloves as part of some motion-sensor demonstration. It was only when I read the small print that I found out what I never would have guessed: that’s not a girl. It’s an android. Specifically, it’s the Repliee Q1, developed by Osaka University. As the unit’s co-creator points out, when androids get to looking that human, it gets a little creepy.

When you visit the project’s home page, the photos there are higher-definition and the android no longer looks as perfectly human as it does in the Expo photo. But well worth watching are the three MPG videos of the android talking, moving, and reacting to someone touching it. Here it’s a mixture of the thing looking less human than you thought but at the same time also looking more human than you might have expected.

One thing it suggests: androids indistinguishable from humans are a little less far off in the future than you may have thought. They’re not coming soon, but we’re farther along the road than I’d have thought.