30 strong fingers but still no happy ending for robotic back rub

The future is a six-handed massage. Apparently some engineers have sidestepped the conventional uses for robotics – stealing your job and exterminating the human race – by putting several additional arms at the disposal of adventurous masseurs. So the claim goes, anyway: it's an example of how next month's HUBOT exhibition in …

[Voland's right hand]

Wrong idea Dabsy

Now that sounds like a lot more fun than undergoing systematic elimination by Cyberdyne T-800 Model 101s. Not so much "I'll be back" as "I'll rub your back".

You have not seen real massage Dabsy. You need to go to the Balkans or even better - to Turkey. There, the local Terminator will terminate you, disassemble you and reassemble you in one piece in about an hour if they are in a hurry, up to four hours if you want a full "annual pre-MOT service".

It is not "I'll rub your back", it is "I will separate your back into pieces and if you leave enough mullah in the tip pot I will be kind enough to put it back together". The experience is one in a lifetime (for a westerner) and the results are amazing. All of this is provided that you are not scared to undergo the procedure (the average UK dweller will have a brown pants moment at the idea of a entering a Turkish Bath and facing some of these guys. Hint - they are BIG).

So, coming back to T800. If the aforementioned masseur (or should it be masseuress?) can do REAL massage it will not be far off from a T800 in its damage potential. No thanks, I will actually leave that job to a human for now.

[AceRimmer1980]

Re: Wrong idea Dabsy

Terminator:Salve Lotion

[Anonymous Coward]

Yumi IRB 14000

That video is very disturbing as it looks like the robot has syringes in it's hands and the shoulders look like eyes.

The last video is also disturbing in that one of the robots has breasts.

Maybe it's just me, good article as always.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Yumi IRB 14000

I thought it was just giving me the finger in a very elaborate freemason street gang way.

[Chris Miller]

"The Shiva physiotherapist massages with her own hands" – it says here, proving that workplace gender neutrality has yet to reach The Netherlands

Dutch (like many languages) has gendered nouns, so it's easy for an unsophisticated (or automated) translation to carry across the gender of pronouns, resulting in something that isn't quite fluent English.

[Semtex451]

OK this annoys me

The Dutch, they come from Holland, but they live in The Netherlands and speak Dutch - NOOO

They are from Nederland and they speak Nederlandse. FIN

[Anonymous Coward]

They are from Nederland and they speak Nederlands e

FIFY.

The Netherlands ("The" is part of it) has been an accepted English translation for decades, hence "His Majesty The King of The Netherlands", and the people there are quite comfortable with "Dutch" applied to them as people, possessive noun and name of their language even though they didn't come up with it (it's an exonym, like "Germany" is for "Deutschland").

The only bit that does indeed annoy a part of the population is using "Holland" (which is at best two provinces) for the whole of The Netherlands as it demonstrates geographic ignorance of the user. It's equivalent to using "England" to refer to the UK.

[#define INFINITY -1]

Same as English. But we've been taught (at least I was) to use "Sir / Madam", "His / Her", etc...

ah, I see you may have read it incorrectly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Od1f0IjMyo

[ElReg!comments!Pierre]

Perhaps 6 hands -> Shiva -> female ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Handroid...

Would you rather it be called the Wank-O-Matic 2000? Wank-O-Tron 9K? Or perhaps the DoomWanker? I'm sure your readers will come up with other versions for your consideration. Happy fapping!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Handroid...

Aaaaahhhhh-two-dee-two ?

[Jedit]

"Aaaaahhhhh-two-dee-two ?"

More like Threepiohhhh.

"Sir, I am fluent in over six million forms of masturbation."

"Do you speak dirty?"

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: "Aaaaahhhhh-two-dee-two ?"

Clippy "Your dick appears to be sub-optimal. Would you like some help with that?"

[steve-b]

"No matter how dextrous and grateful it has been designed to be"

I knew robots had come a long way, but they actually have emotions now?

[Alistair Dabbs]

>> "No matter how dextrous and grateful it has been designed to be"

I wonder if robots will succumb to autocorrect too. Could be interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Rise of The Sex Robots

This will not end well - Howard Walowitz knows!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZTEvcTIuCQ

AC; It's Poets Day

[Steve Button]

Arachnophobia issues aside

Entomophobia issues aside

There, fixed that.

[HieronymusBloggs]

Re: Arachnophobia issues aside

"Entomophobia issues aside"

So the masseuse has no legs?

[jake]

The question remains ...

Can they pluck a chicken?

(Not safe for vegans, card carrying PETAphools, or anybody who doesn't know where food comes from.)

[Anonymous Coward]

"Of course, the biggest problem with Handroid is its name: it sounds like a sex toy."

Sounds more like a painful condition that used to generate quack adverts in the Sunday newspapers' classified ads.

[Simon Harris]

The Robots of Death.

"There was a Voc therapist in Kaldor City. Specially programmed, equipped with vibro-digits, subcutaneous stimulators, the lot. You know what happened, Borg? Its first client wanted treatment for a stiff elbow. The Voc therapist felt carefully all around the joint, and then suddenly just twisted his arm off at the shoulder. Shoompf. All over in two seconds."

How time flies - that episode was 40 years ago!

(Can we have a Dr. Who icon please?)

[chivo243]

Just like the ED 209

I expect it to go berserk at any second, requiring military intervention to bring to a halt.

[Prst. V.Jeltz]

Its starting ....

"3D printing has gone a certain way towards altering these perceptions by skinning the Meccano with what looks like melted candlewax"

see icon

[IsJustabloke]

Roboter...

As a fan of Kraftwerk, that homage made me smile :)

[Antron Argaiv]

Imaginative Names

The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation?

// first against the wall...

[Semtex451]

Alright Dabsy I'll bite

About your entry for the 2000AD script-writing competition, could we have that serialised in these hollowed pages please?

I do mean hollowed.

[ma1010]

Sounds about right

"...untick if you don't not want your map data not to be not unused"

I've seen language similar to this on ballot measures in California. Probably the same lawyer writes those T&Cs.

Carrying this idea out, I get a bad movie plot idea: The secret robotic overlords take over the law profession and remake society in a way that makes all humans want to kill themselves to escape. When you think about it, it's at least a little bit plausible. Reading the news, there are times I suspect they are already at work.

[Semtex451]

Re: Sounds about right

They're already at my work, the folk that make all humans want to kill themselves to escape.

Every other person.

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL9zWeFifcE

says it all.

Also, the second video got me wondering that if that had been in the UK, how long it would have taken a couple of school boys to get the hand to give the v's, wayn kerr gestures etc.

10 PRINT JOSEPH SIMPKINS FANCIES BARRY CRABTREES SISTER

20 GOTO 10

[Unicornpiss]

Syntax error..

10 PRINT JOSEPH SIMPKINS FANCIES BARRY CRABTREES SISTER

20 GOTO 10

You forgot the quotation marks

[earl grey]

" No happy ending for me."

At this point i would suggest you either work on it yourself or get someone like the picture to help you.

[Mindfart]

Sorry but.. he didn't teach nobody nothing.

"In July, I filmed Handroid at Hyper Japan in London, going through the paces as a human operator progressively taught it how to move."

The bot copied his movements.. what exactly did the robot learn?

[Jeffrey Nonken]

Re: Sorry but.. he didn't teach nobody nothing.

At the beginning of the video, the robot's movements are stiff and uncoordinated, and only approximate the operator's movements. As time goes on the robot's movements become smoother, more accurate and better coordinated, and follow with less delay.

[Alistair Dabbs]

Re: Sorry but.. he didn't teach nobody nothing.

The operator was doing this for about 5 minutes before my video starts. I didn't want to bore you.

[Jeffrey Nonken]

Handroid? That's just a relabeled Waldo. A fancy one, to be sure, but a Waldo.

"Those who do not learn from Science Fiction are doomed to re-read it." - George Santaclaus or something

[Boris the Cockroach]

Quote

This is all very silly: robots aren't like that at all. Rather than inadvertently switching from its default "Sew A Button" mode to a "Tear Limbs Off All Humans" subroutine that a mischievous programmer cut and pasted from GitHub, a real-life robot has different objectives.

Actually , when you get down to programming the bastards, you'll find that the "Tear limbs off all humans" mode is actually the default mode, and the "sew a button" mode take ages to sort out because any errors in the code and it goes back to default mode.

Which is why I need a new boss......... and a new apprentice........ well there was no way I was going to enter the cage and try and stop the bloody thing.

Boris

<<making do with zips and velcro

[rnturn]

That Swiss robot...

I couldn't help thinking while watching that Swiss robot: Did it ever do anything practical? Who need a robot that does Tai chi all day long?

[Peter Kavanagh.]

Maybe you need a Sophia in your life

From the IBC show (broadcast conference/tradeshow) a few weeks back:

https://ibc.gallery.video/ibctv/detail/video/5578796467001/ibc2017-keynote-shorts:-the-future-with-robots-that-are-like-us

There's a point where 'she' gives a toothy grin which just unnerved the hell out of me. For the full keynote:

https://ibc.gallery.video/ibctv/detail/video/5578924845001/ibc2017-keynote-conferences:-the-future-with-robots-that-are-like-us

(Damn, missed Hyper Japan again!)

[Anonymous Coward]

Dabsy, why all the handwaving?

I note you only film robots that just wave in the air and don't do anything that's actually useful.

:)

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Dabsy, why all the handwaving?

He's a consultant. That IS work! :-p

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the next generation will do better.

Maybe? Hopefully? Well, at least imaginarily... TNG's token Asperger case was "fully functional".

[DanceMan]

You will be assimilated....................

Scares us when it comes from a cyborg with a mechanical arm(ed) with sharp whirring bits.

But when it comes in a sexy form (for either gender) will we be receptive?

[Unicornpiss]

Something went wrong :(

But will you get a cold, jerky, possibly penile-lacerating Happy Ending as you listen to the whirring of gears and click of solenoids?