Iranian teacher builds robot to teach prayer

AP, Iranian teacher builds robot to teach prayer "Rezaei who has built a robot to show to children how to execute daily prayers, has innovated an amusing way of encouraging young children to say their daily prayers by using the science of robotics." (this is the original article: also see my post below - this one has the advantage of a range of photographs!)

'Ibn Sina' the Robot

AFP/asiaone.com, Robots primed for 'are you being served' role in Arabic, 3 Nov 09 "A laboratory in the UAE has built what it says is the world's first Arabic-speaking robot which could soon go into mass production to serve as staff in shopping malls.

"Ibn Sina, named after the 11th century Islamic philosopher and scientist commonly known in English as Avicenna, was designed by a team at UAE University in the city of Al-Ain, which is part of Abu Dhabi emirate.

""It is the world's first Arabic-speaking conversational humanoid robot," Nikolaos Mavridis, assistant professor of computer science at the university who led the team, told AFP in an interview."