http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/07/world/what-in-the-world/in-the-land-of-the-robot-androids-are-on-the-march.html 2016-09-06 16:32:10 In the Land of the Robot, Androids Are on the March A handful of androids now greet visitors at a shopping mall and entertain on television. The company that made them plans to add them by the thousands. === Meet Chihira Junco, a tourist greeter at a shopping mall in Tokyo. In her crisp blue button-down shirt, white blazer and pinstripe skirt, she stands in sensible pumps behind a counter in Aqua City Odaiba on Tokyo Bay, dispensing directions to local sites and shops in Japanese, Chinese and English. She is not, however, human. Ms. Junco — if you can use an honorific for a machine — joins an incipient group of androids springing up around Toshiba, the electronics company, developed Chihira Junco in collaboration with technology labs at several Japanese universities. She and four other androids cost ¥10 million (about $93,000) to produce, but only Ms. Junco — Chihira? — is currently out in public, while the others remain with their maker. The company said it planned to develop another 1,000 androids in 2017. By 2020, it hopes to make 10,000 a year. At Aqua City, which is popular with tourists and where a small-scale replica of the Up close, Chihara’s robotic arm movements give her away, as do her eyes, which blink only halfway. When she “talks,” she looks more like someone chewing gum than speaking. During a recent rendition of “My Heart Will Go On,” the theme from the movie “Titanic,” her mouth barely moved and her gestures suggested a crossing guard directing traffic. For those visitors who still long for genuine human contact, two actual human greeters stand at an information counter about 20 feet away.