or just use the accelerometer of the ipad. turn yourself and and the ipad to look around the room. Would feel like you were moving a virtual window around. I doubt the robot can react fast enough for it to feel natural though.
Yep, the key is speed, hence why I said "flick". Next time you're in a meeting keep track of how many times you look at someone and back in less than a second.
But we have to go through this step before we can advance the technology, so I'm all for these style of robots.