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"I've taken some stick for passages in Altered Carbon which people complained had sickened them, but then violence should be sickening."
- Richard Morgan

Gesturing Robot  
  A robot that uses gestures to communicate.  

In "Strange Playfellow" (aka "Robbie") by Isaac Asimov (1940) robots have not advanced to the point where they can talk, instead they use gestures. There is an impractical "talking robot" for display.

Robbie waited until she had caught her breath and then pulled gently at a lock of hair.
"You want something?" said Gloria, eyes wide in an apparently artless complexity that fooled her huge "nursemaid" not at all. He pulled the curl harder.
"Oh, I know. You want a story." Robbie nodded rapidly.
"Which one?" Robbie made a semi-circle in the air with one finger. The little girl protested, "Again? I've told you Cinderella a million times. Aren't you tired of it? -It's for babies."
Another semi-circle.
"Oh, well," Gloria composed herself, ran over the details of the tale in her mind (together with her own elaborations, of which she had several) and began...
Technovelgy from Robbie (Strange Playfellow), by Isaac Asimov.
Published by Super Science Stories in 1940
Additional resources -

Thanks to Winchell Chung (aka @nyrath) of Project Rho for contributing this item.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Robbie (Strange Playfellow)
  More Ideas and Technology by Isaac Asimov
  Tech news articles related to Robbie (Strange Playfellow)
  Tech news articles related to works by Isaac Asimov

Gesturing Robot-related news articles:
  - Robonaut 2 Uses American Sign Language (ASL) on ISS

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Artificial Skin For Robots Is Coming Right Along
Robot Guard Dog On Duty
Wearable Artificial Fabric Muscles

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