The real speaking robot

This is just an amazing piece of technology, even though it's not complete yet. After the robotic music band, here is the talking robot. No, I mean really talking, not just (as we are already used to) a speaker that generates the sound.

Professor Sawada from Kagawa University hascreated a mouth with a wind pipe and larynx (voice box). By manipulating the air flow and the positions of the lips, this device is able to reproduce a lot of sounds already, apart from "f" and "s". That's for the next version, as you need teeth for that. In the mean time, the system is self-learning, it learns to improve itself. It's amazing, just watch this video below.

[embed]http://youtu.be/HmSYnOvEueo[/embed]

Hat tip to Bobby Owinsky's blog for the video.