Microsoft Milo

This is a little creepy and pretty amazing. Microsoft's virtual human -- a character called "Milo" -- made an appearance today at the TED Global conference in Oxford, England. The BBC reports that Milo will react to a person's emotions, body movements and voice when working in conjunction with Microsoft's upcoming Kinect video game device. Here's a look."This is true technology that science fiction hasn't even written about," said Microsoft's Peter Molyneux in the video.

Milo first appeared at the E3 conference last year, but the BBC said he has not been since. Here's more from the report, which notes that Microsoft has no intention to monetize Milo at the moment.

Mr Molyneux said Milo had been built using artificial intelligence developed by his firm Lionhead studios, along with technology that was "hidden in the dusty vaults of Microsoft". He said the system exploited psychological techniques to make a person feel that Milo was real. In addition, software allowed "complete control" over subtle facial elements such as blushing and even the diameter of Milo's nostrils, which he said could denote stress.

After watching this video, I was left wondering: Aren't there enough real humans on the planet that we shouldn't have to worry about virtual ones. That said, there are situations where a virtual human might be far easier to interact with than a real one.