ity of the city, and had to dispose of the thing after that, usually after a series of violent events.
The first takes of the modern android, a machine based on science and technology instead of magic or divine powers, appeared during the 19th century in some speculative histories about "mechanical dolls". The term would not become popular until George Lucas brought the word "droid" into Star Wars. If a droid was just a robot, an android is a droid that looks like a human ("anthrop-" is the Greek root for "human being"; the term "gynoid" is derived from the same principle and used to describe droids that resemble women. Of course, the idea in modern media was older than that (see the movie Metropolis for a very early interpretation in cinema), but they usually just used the world robot, which is not as precise as it should be.
Actual developement of androids
Nowadays, the developement of human-like robots has risen in popularity, although the results usually fall right into the uncanny valley. Seriously, just look at some of those Japanese androids they show on those technology showcases, and tell me you don't get the creeps. The investigation also focus on the AIs, in particular those that allow self-learning. But as of now, they look and act very dumb. So your dream of getting your own robot girl is still too far. Don't lie, you want one.
Androids in Star Wars
The (trademarked) name "Droid" is obviously derived from "android". Despite this, while many droids in Star Wars have a roughly humanoid shape and artificial skin is old tech that has existed for a long time (a long time), very few droids could pass for human. The first known droid that pretended to be human did so merely by pretending to never meet in person and projecting a hologram of its "owner" and pretending they were elsewhere. That of course, doesn't really count.
It was not until the era of the Empire that droids capable of passing for human went anywhere. The first attempt came shortly after the fall of the Republic and was so disastrously deep in the uncanny valley it killed the company behind it. Despite this Imperial scientists, well aware of their value as infiltrators, continued working on them. A decade latter they produced droids that could pass for human to all but thorough medical tests and were explicitly capable of sex. The Rebellion experimented with the concept as well, but didn't produce anything till after the Battle of Endor (by which time they had already encountered Imperial examples) and those they did were crude and malfunction prone. In the New Republic era one of the surviving Imperial examples began producing further examples based on her own design.
Saga Edition is the only one of the Star Wars RPGs to stat replica droids out for PC use, giving them stats in Threats of the Galaxy. They are stated as a humanoid race with some droid traits instead of a type of droid. The others do mention their existence and the way droids work in D6 and FFG's system makes it easy to roll a droid PC and say it's a replica droid.
Examples of androids in D&D
Purely technological Androids are a rare sight in D&D,;however there are a truckload of golems, magically empowered automata and races of weird mechanical celestial beings that fit the larger bill. Actual androids do appear as enemies you can face in the classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventure module Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, in which you explore what is ultimately revealed to be a crashed spaceship module from the Metamorphosis Alpha.
Pathfinder, being more willing to embrace the more gonzo and Science Fantasy aspects of old-school D&D, has a subsetting called Numeria, which is basically a glorious homage to the aforementioned module with a dash of Conan the Barbarian: it's a region of Golarion where a hyper-advanced spaceship crashed centuries ago. As such, the region is crawling with robots of various shapes and sizes, whilst androids - artificial humanoids who're basically super-realistic warforged in practice - are a player race that emerged from that region. Androids don't slee