This creepy robot skin responds to being tickled, slapped, or caressed

Scientists have tried a lot of tactics to help us better communicate with our technology, whether it's giving them a voice or a humanoid-like body to help us move things. But new research takes that a step further by designing synthetic skin that looks, feels and reacts like human skin. The research will be presented Sunday in New Orleans during the 32nd ACM User Interface Software and Technology Symposium and details the process researchers from the University of Bristol took to discover what characteristics would be most appealing in a synthetic skin, and how they could implement those in a responsive and tactile way. The result is a fleshy colored robot that can "feel." Will this skin one day cover the surface of robots like Sophia?