07/05/11 —   Just as the recent code release of Microsoft Kinect software gave robotics developers a shortcut to creating autonomous robotics applications, Tokyo's Showa University has taken a shortcut to creating a dental-training robot with realistic features and reflexes, by adapting a so-called "love doll" robot. Dental training robots are not new. King's College in London designed hapTEL– a virtual reality training chair that uses haptics to give students feedback so they can better ascertain how much pressure to exert when working on a patient. The problem with the hapTEL robot is that students are not able to experience empathy as…