According to Inventorspot, the Jin Xi Fu Jewelry store in Beijing, China, has added a robotics system to its staff. While it is not a real person, the automated android may have legions of fans, as it closely resembles a popular Chinese television actress.

Dubbed Xiao Jin after the celebrity it mimics, the robot features humanoid movements, such as lip-synced speaking and limited limb movements, reported the news source. The device's creators at the Xi'an Chao Ren Robot Technology company claim the robot cost roughly $60,000 to manufacture, most of which can be attributed to the attention to detail they had to include in order for it to come across as truly life-like.

“All her hair, from scalp to eyebrows are 100 percent human,” Wang Qin, the store manager for the jewelry store, told the media outlet.

Robotics systems that mimic human movements are called androids and, due to technology advances, they are becoming more popular. Recently, the German Aerospace Center created a device called Rolling Justin, which is able to catch a ball thrown at it from more than 15 feet away.

One of the most endearing characteristics of robotics systems is they allow humans to explore harsh and dangerous environments. Thanks to robots' metal gears and hardy processing units, the human race has made scientific discoveries in places that were once thought unreachable.

According to USA Today, robots are now being used by a University of Southern Mississippi team to explore the Ross Sea in Antarctica. The robots brave the frigid waters and go where humans cannot, including underneath the thick sea ice.

The robotics team is using two Seaglider robots, which became famous in 2010 when the model was charged with exploring the undersea site of the Gulf oil spill disaster, reports the news source. Now, the robots are being used to collect data about the little known Antarctic sea.

"The beauty of the gliders is they can collect data for days without any human help," Walker Smith, team member with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, told the media organization.

Robots are quite the oceanographers. Recently, autonomous undersea machines were used by the Dutch navy to find a sunken German U-boat off the coast of the Netherlands, reports the Boston Globe.

The crowd watched with rapt attention as the clock ticked down to zero, all the while their soccer sides battled to the very end for a chance to be world champions. This scene, reminiscent of a FIFA World Cup final, was actually the the result of a recent robotics competition.

According to Forbes, every year another country plays host to a global robotics competition, called RoboCup, that features teams pitting their technology against one another in a soccer match.

The robots must display a complex set of skills if they hope to succeed in match play. The news source explains that these humanoid devices must perform the task of "locating a ball, which involves vision and localization, and knocking it into a goal, which requires strategizing abilities."

As is most international soccer, the United States squad is not heavily favored. Teams from Japan and Germany generally dominate the robotic event, states the media outlet.

There are several international robotic events that technological enthusiast can look forward to. According to the Khaleej Times, the first inaugural World Robot Olympiad will be held in Saudi Arabia in September.

The Wisconsin 4-H organization is making final preparations ahead of a robotics competition it will host at the Milwaukee County UW-Extension office in Wauwatosa.

The robotics rally is scheduled for May 14. It is open to students in grades 3 through 12, as well as adult team leaders. Entrants must complete three pre-determined challenges using the robot the team has built and programmed.

One event is called "breakfast bot." For the competition, the robot must move a 1-gallon milk bottle, an orange juice carton and a cereal box from one location to another.

"It's quite a mixture of new teams to robotics and a few veteran teams," 4-H program coordinator, Michelle Gonzalez, told the newspaper. "Our role as youth development educators is to bring positive learning to children in the entire county."

The Wisconsin 4-H has a similar event planned for Green Bay a week after the Wauwatosa competition.

In Ohio, 1,000 participants from 45 schools with about 400 robots recently participated in the National Robotics Competition. The event featured a total of 13 different competitions.