Roland Piquepaille writes, "The Japanese Humanoid Robotics Project has produced the HRP-2 robot, which is known for dancing and preserving Japanese culture. But now, the HRP-2, which is about 1.6 meter high and weighs about 60 kilograms, can hear humans and understand them with its sophisticated software and hearing equipment. It uses an array of microphones consisting of eight omnidirectional microphones mounted around the robot's head. Stable speech recognition is obtained by combining information from the microphone array and a camera also mounted on its head, and by isolating and eliminating noises, even from your TV. These hearing capabilities are essential "for helping humans to communicate with robots in real environments by 2025." For more details and photos see Roland's blog. Also, see our previous story on the HRP-2 robot's dancing abilities.