So this is all over the place now, but I am spreading the joy of a Kuka-powered trebuchet to you, our extremely bored readers. See the beauty. Watch the innovation. Get all sweaty and hot about Science.

The disclaimer is the really awesome part.

If you’ll remember, that particular Kuka model also has been known to drop phat beats and scrizzatch them mad rhymes.

[via Botjunkie via Hackaday via Manapotions]

This is *so* going on my permanent record.

My Robot Friend and I will be smoking in the girl’s room if you need us.

This is great. Some folks built a filter bot to detect stupid comments.

Q: Isn’t filtering stupidity elitist?
A: Yes. Yes, it is. That’s sort of the whole point.

Q:Won’t people just try to defeat the filter, the way spammers try to get around spam filtering?
A: We certainly hope they will — that implies they’re no longer generating text statistically likely to be stupid.

We hopes version 2.0 can has flamethrower

Concentrated Stupid: Here’s a random stupid comment detected by the method. Keep clicking for concentrated supidity, LOLZ ROTFLMAO!!

Warren Ellis channels all robots, everywhere, when he repackages the Three Laws:

Robots do not want to have sex with you. Are you listening, Japan?

[Thanks Matt! (via Le Boing)]

. . .is, of course, the noble squid. My personal favorite species is Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, but Laughing Squid has alerted us to Royal Deluxe’s “Le Calmar Géant à Rétropropulsion“:

It’s a steampunk-tastic inspirational ride-on piece that fits with Royal Deluxe’s mechanical interactive giant mobile street theater aesthetic. Another thing that made me feel all intelligent is the fact that we noticed that the squid moves down the track tentacles-first, which seems confusing until you remember that tentacles-first is, of course, backwards for a squid.

[This post dedicated to Dr. Jen Gittzus, Squid Goddess YC SY '98, who is not dead but also probably not reading this page either. Hi Gittzus.]

Cybestein Robots of the UK has a great appearance robot, Titan.

This is the best puppeteering I’ve seen. There’s still a guy inside the suit, but the verisimilitude is really good!

Click the photo for a nice video.

Li’l Missy here, working through the obstacle of spotty-ass wifi in the hotel room to get you up to date on what the heck we’ve been doing since we vanquished the forces of entropy and got to Tokyo intact.

We’re here for the International Robot Expo, the largest robot exhibition in Japan. While there are many booths that feature the same old industrial robots and bolt sorting machines and etc, there’s also a ton of stuff that really fails to suck. We’ve been meeting interwebs people in person for the first time, and are having a ball doing it.

Here are a few pics detailing what we are seeing.

This is Tokyo Big Site, a massive convention center where IREX is being held. It’s big. Real big. No, bigger. There are five or six huge conventions going on, as well as lots of interstitial restaurants and vending machines. None of the vending machines contain beer or schoolgirls’ panties, but we will keep looking, don’t you fret.

AIIIEE!!! Teeny winky shuffle bots with the tiny, tiny feets! Teh ky00t! It burns!

These little robots had no wheels, only little vibrating feet that got them hither and thither. they seemed to be directionally controlled, although I could not tell if it was autonomous and human. They also seem to be light-sensitive for light and dark areas underneath them.

Three words: Robo-One Laser Tag. This guy is playing Terminator-style in a cloud of talcum powder, click on the thumbnail to get the full on end-of-the-world-disaster feeling. A bunch of them played against each other for all the glory and the loser bought the next round of beers. It was awesome, and by awesome, I mean totally sweet. Better than ninjas. And nothing is better than ninjas, except for maybe more ninjas.

Creepy? Yes. Highly amusing to watch sober-suited Japanese industrialists squirm as they handle a fussy robot? HELLS yes. The Real Care Baby is a doll that simulates a real child for use in daily life and to find out which reprobate highschooler would do well to never. ever procreate. They cry, they fuss, they do the things babies do. They are all identical. It’s weird in an oddly compelling way.

More in a bit, as our wifi is funky here.

And the gorgeous and loverly prep for Roboexotica charges on, with organizers running back and forth in a flurry, wire everywhere, and many, many, many MANY spent cans of fine Austrian beer.

Here’s a picture of Mr. Robotics weeping softly and twitching, as he finishes Chapek in the home stretch before the show.

In the background you can see the legendary RoboMoji, constant attendee at RoboExotica and maker of the most carefully crafted mojitos made by a machine in Vienna in this room during these dates. Notice Chapek looming malignantly in the background. There is also a very interesting head-mounted device which mysteriously appears without any apparent creator.
Investigative reporting to follow.

This one pretty much speaks for itself.

Roboexotica has been getting spiffy mention in a few places.

Futurist Paul Saffo expounds on why you should never, ever be allowed to drive a motor vehicle, ever:

Move Over, the Robot’s Driving: By the Year 2050, Forecasters Predict Robots Will Rule the Road

(Mr. Robotics already thinks I should never be allowed to drive a motor vehicle, ever, under any circumstances. Also, it should be made illegal for me personally to parallel park.)

[Thanks Paul!]

The first thing I thought when I saw this was - “Well then, what the hell are roadies for?”

We-e-e-e-ell, I *suppose* a robotic guitar would scam on groupies less than a roadie would, and wouldn’t drink all your booze and do the load-out hungover, so I guess it’s cool. . .

[Insert usual smart-ass jokes about guitar world domination and killing humans here.]

[Thanks Engadget!

This guy is cooler than you are.

Feroz Ahmed Siddiky of the International Islamic University in Chittagong says his “IRobo” responds to voice commands, has spatial intelligence and is cheap because it’s made from scrap materials he’s collected from electronic shops and car mechanics.

“On completion, this robot will comply with different verbal commands for tasks like shifting objects, cleaning floors and standing guard,” Siddiky told Reuters.

Everybody go to the junkyard and build one for yourself. It’s easy. Okay, go.

[From Reuters via Futuresheet Thanks Evil Signtist!]

This just in from far-flung correspondent Ali Spagnola, and artist who does a bunch of stuff, not the least of which is thie neat music video:

Robots For Everyone indeed. So cute, so disarming. but what about when they TAKE OVER THE WORLD AND DESTROY ALL THAT WE HOLD DEAR?

Yeah I thought so. Off to Tea with Mr. Joy.

Let’s hear it for the Suicidebots homies Stanford University, who have won yet another DARPA Grand Challenge, this time over a citylike environment:

In all, 11 robotic vehicles set out on the race course Saturday morning, and while five scrubbed out for various reasons, the fact that six driverless vehicles drove a delivery route seems like a win for innovation. No car finished in the first race in 2004.

Big ups to Sebastian Thrun and the team that made Junior road-ready

Seriously, I really think there’s an oil-hall putsch going on or something. Loyal correspondent Johnny Payphone sends us these tidbits from around the country:

Rail Worker Killed in Robot Locomotive Accident
Runaway Robot Rail Cars Terrorize Portland
Detroit Bans Robot Rail Car Menace

Remind me not to hang around any rail yards in the immediate future. . .

This just in from Stealth Correspondent Jared The Roboticist:

I have undeniable that the Roomba is no meager vacuuming robot, but is in fact a fully aware killing machine. I can only suspect why my Roomba Scheduler tried to burn down my apartment, maybe because of the beer I spilt on it, breaking its clean button, maybe it feels I don’t appreciate all the cleaning it does for me, but I came home to my roomba pulling the power cord from my printer out of the outlet strip. I picked the roomba off the cord and sent it on its way. I noticed a short time later that it had started to push a small wire bracket that I can only assume is stored inside its chassis for such devious purposes.

(Jared kindly enclosed photos of The Incident):

I watched as it pushed this bracket directly into the prongs of the power cord which the Roomba had so expertly pulled only part of the way out of the power strip. To my horror, this created a huge spark which turned out the power just in time for me to see my power strip catch fire. Luckily, I was able to immediately put it out, but I know now to never trust this killbot with my floors again.

You heard it here first, kids. Jared has pinpointed the beginnings of the upcoming robotic revolution. Make nice now and be the last up against the wall.