Dōmo arigatō misutā Robotto (7 strange robots among us)

February 4, 2010

At the recent Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, a man unveiled a lifelike female robot. The robot is, well, very anatomically correct. Her name is Roxxxy, and her inventor says “She doesn’t vacuum or cook, but she does almost everything else”. Basically, for $7,000 you can have your very own sex robot. If you want, you can read about all it does here. I understand that there are a lot of lonely men out there, but this is ridiculous. Are we really becoming so socially inept that we need artificial women to pleasure us? I don’t care if her silicone skin stays warm, she has voice recognition software, and even has orgasms, I just can’t imagine that it’s anywhere close to the real thing. It seems like you would need a little bit of necrophilia in you to enjoy sexual relations with this:

He finally found something who makes him happy

I guess it was inevitable. There are robots that are built to do all sorts of things. (i.e. the Roomba) Here are a few of the stranger ones.

Robot camel jockey

Camel racing has been around in the Middle East for thousands of years. Only recently did people start to question the fact that boys as young as four were almost exclusively used as the jockeys for these races. Since the slave jockey trade is not a big business in the area, a Qatar man developed a robot to guide the camels through the course.

Who says technology has gone too far?

Despite being a little spooked at first, the camels seem to be OK with their aluminum riders. They are controlled via a radio controlled unit operated by someone in an SUV following the race.

Push the talking trash can

Disney is always coming up with unique ideas, such as charging $72 for an entry ticket. (Unbelievable. But if people keep paying it, they’ll keep charging it.) One thing they have at their p[arks in California and Florida is Push. It’s a trash can controlled by a couple Disney employees that rolls around and interacts with customers, doing things like encouraging them to recycle.

I wonder how they came up with the name?

I don’t know about you, but I would be pretty upset if I just vastly overpaid to get into a theme park and then get welcomed by a trash can. Talk about adding insult to injury!

The Trons

The Trons are a a band of robots created by a man in New Zealand. He even gave them names. Ham plays rhythm guitar and sings, Wiggy plays lead guitar, Swamp is on the drums, and Fifi plays the keyboard after a failed attempt at bass guitar.

Say what you want, they’re still better than Coldplay.

Breast massage robot

Leave it to Japan to develop a robot that is intended to stimulate breast growth in developing teenagers, as well as “improve the quality of women’s sex activities”. It also says that the use of this robot will help women who want “pretty breasts”.

Flowers make everything pretty

While scientifically false, the idea that massaging the breasts to make them bigger is something I wish I would have thought of as a teenager. It seems like a line that may work from time to time.

Robot butler

This one was unveiled in Japan a few years ago. It supposedly can do anything you need around the house, including cook and serve breakfast. Maybe it’s just me, but this robot looks like it would serve you until just the right moment, when it would kill you and join the other robots in a revolt.

Here is your meal. Enjoy, as it will be your last.

The good news about this, it’s not due to be available to the public until 2015, so we have at least 5 years until the Skynet nightmare becomes a reality. But still, doesn’t he look just a little like Johnny No. 5?

CB2 Robot child

Another Japan creation, and undeniably creepy. It is designed to emulate “the physical ability of a 1- or 2-year-old toddler, can turn over and stand up with assistance”. That’s great and all, but did they really need to make it look like this:

"Are you my Mommy?"

Scary. And if you have a penchant for watching creepy, spine chilling things, check out this video, especially the last part where it looks like it’s going through it’s death throes.

Although it may have a good purpose as well. Maybe next time Nadya Suleman decides she wants another baby, she can go out and get one of these instead of bringing in eight more kids into this world to exploit.

Robot cockroach

These tiny robots were built to mimic the tendencies of cockroaches so that it could live among them and scientists could further study the behavior of a cockroach. Amazingly, the roaches accepted to robot as one of their own. You know, because the robot looks so much like a roach.

It's OK to be different

Of course, it helped that the scientists doused the robots with pheromones that attract roaches. Anyways, it has helped make amazing improvements on how much scientists understand roach behavior. It’s a good thing, because I always want to know as much as I can about the beautiful cockroach.

While some of the above are technological advancements, none of them interest me. Until they develop a robot that will go grocery shopping and put away the dishes, I’m not interested. I certainly have no interest in getting amorous with an artificial life form. Well, maybe if they made one that looks like Lisa from Weird Science. But until then…