Can nightmarish genderless homonculus replace touchscreens?
A prototype of the device called Elfoid P1 was unveiled last week by robotics researchers from Osaka University working for NTT DoCoMo and Qualcomm.
The big idea is that the hideous Elfoid manikin mimics the actions of the other person on a phone call, and has control buttons embedded into the chest, which glow when in use.
It also has camera and motion sensor to interpret the user's actions and transmit them to the other caller.
And it does all this via its genderless fleshy urethane skin.
For God's sake don't let your children see this news story.
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The head of the team is robotics expert Hiroshi Ishiguro, who is famous to creating robotic doppelgangers and has even made one of himself.
Elfoid is actually a smaller, and possibly even more sinister, version of a larger model developed by the same team a year ago.
The team hopes to have a fully operational Elfoid phone within five years.
The movie, featuring an Elfoid that comes alive, swears a lot and butchers children, will be out shortly after.
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