She's walked down the aisle and we've heard nothing from her since. Until now that is. I'm talking about the funky robot model, HRP-4C, who has been making headlines for the past few months. First we saw her strut her assets (well, in her own robotic way) at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology early this year. This was followed by the famous catwalk moment in a bridal dress. Now, she's back; this time, she's grabbing centerstage and belting out a few tunes.

Alright, so perhaps explanations are in order. It's not like she is having a Lorne style moment where she sings at the Caritas. Rather, she kept company at a booth in a recent tech-focused event where HRP-4C showcased that company's voice synthesizer software!

The event in question took place at the beginning of this month at CEATEC Japan 2009. It was one of those events where companies mingled together and showed off their latest innovations. In this case, Yamaha created Vocaloid, the voice synthesizer software that enables HRP-4C to dish out a few songs.

Basically, this is how it works. The company incorporated two synthesized voices – i.e. Hatsune Miku and Megpoid. Hatsune Miku is a well-known Yamaha-made voice synthesizer that lets users create pop songs. Incidentally, the poster-girl of the product is also a fictional character referred to by the same name. The same goes for Megpoid. From what I have read, you can tweak the phonetic sounds, provided by these voices, to put together a song. That's what I gathered so far.

HRP-4C sings quite a few songs using this process. ANN notes "Tsugarukaiky? Fuyugeshiki” (Sayuri Ishikawa) and “Melt” (Supercell) as just two of the numbers sung by HRP-4C. Check out the video to see how she fares. I must say that the voice synthesizer works well. I expected a squeaky and echoing  GLaDOS-style rendition (remember “Still Alive”) but, funnily enough, this version sounded more human-like. Or was that just me completely losing the plot? Jokes aside, the voice synthesizer makes her sound like a human being who can't sing to save their lives (hence should probably avoid Caritas). She sings off-key quite a bit but, overall, not a bad job. Except, perhaps, for that one high note which can be roughly defined as a 'Alert, Alert, Aliens attacking' sort of security alarm.

I noticed that a lot of folks who checked out the video were disappointed that she was not dancing. Her only movements were head-bobbing, accompanied by slight facial 'expressions'. In this case, I am guessing that the creators did not want to detract from the robot's capability to imitate human singing, albeit that of folks who had a bit too much wine before hitting the karoke bar. And who know, perhaps the dance moves are next? To be fair, she was dressed for the part – cosplay outfit, the hair and possibly the boots. And we've seen how her joints can be somewhat flexible, giving her enough leeway to mimic human movement. It is only a matter of time before she pulls a JLo move on us.

Link (ANN & PlasticPals)