It is also capable of producing more than 40 facial expressions, can recognize 10 people, has a vocabulary of tens of thousands of words and adapts its conversation to the habits and personalities of different people.
It will go on sale April 7 and is priced at ?500,000 having an initial production of 1,000 units.
The robot is also targeted at the elderly, for whom having someone to talk is essential to their well-being, Kato said. It has completed successful trials at retirement homes.
"It still has to be developed as the elderly often have very strong regional accents which it does not understand," he added.
For the skeptics who cannot conceive of talking to a machine, the Science University of Tokyo is showcasing a human-looking silicon face called Saya, or "Face Robo" at Robodex.
"We work on emotional communication between human and machine so we try to have facial expressions very similar to [those of] human beings," said the university's Hiroshi Kobayashi, an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering.
Saya, which has the face of a woman, blinks every five seconds, is linked to a computer and can show six expressions -- fear, surprise, anger, disgust, happiness and sadness -- by means of elastic cords attached at 18 points in its "skin."
The robot, which only has a vocabulary of 50 words, will probably be installed at the university's reception desk in a year or so and after that could be on the market for US$20,000-US$30,000, Kobayashi said.
"I think she could be better accepted than humanoid robots because she seems real and it is easy to communicate with her, according to our psychological experiments," Kobayashi said.
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