http://singularityhub.com/2010/05/23/toyotas-robot-violinist-wows-crowd-at-shanghai-expo-2010-video/
While this robot will clearly not put a human violinist out of work (yet) and it'd clearly be easier to just synthesize the sound rather than actually physically play the violin (duh), the human movements and fingers and so on have to have a million practical applications.
I will now list them in a boring monotone.
Surgery. Assisting the elderly. Playing a violin. Petting a cat. Feeding a cat. Emptying a litter box. Hammy acting. Battling the Borg. Listing numbers to the second decimal point. Painting paintings.
While this robot will clearly not put a human violinist out of work (yet) and it'd clearly be easier to just synthesize the sound rather than actually physically play the violin (duh), the human movements and fingers and so on have to have a million practical applications.
I will now list them in a boring monotone.
Surgery. Assisting the elderly. Playing a violin. Petting a cat. Feeding a cat. Emptying a litter box. Hammy acting. Battling the Borg. Listing numbers to the second decimal point. Painting paintings.