Friday, September 26, 2008

Call Me Android



For other uses, see Android (disambiguation).
"Mechanoid" redirects here. For The RPG Mechanoid Race, see The Mechanoid Invasion. For the robot featured in Red Dwarf, see Kryten.
"Mechonoid" redirects here. For the Doctor Who race, see List of Doctor Who robots#Mechonoid. For other uses, see Mechonoid (disambiguation).
An android.
An android.

An android is a robot designed to resemble a human, usually both in appearance and behavior. The word derives from ανδρός, the genitive of the Greek ανήρ anēr, meaning "man", and the suffix -eides, used to mean "of the species; alike" (from eidos, "species"). Though the word derives from a gender-specific root, its usage in English is usually gender neutral; the female counterpart, gynoid, is generally used only when the female gender is a distinguishing trait of the robot. The term was first mentioned by St. Albertus Magnus in 1270 and was popularized by the French writer Villiers in his 1886 novel L'Ève future, although the term "android" appears in US patents as early as 1863 in reference to miniature humanlike toy automations.

Thus far, androids have largely remained within the domain of science fiction, frequently seen in film and television. However, some humanoid robots now exist.

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