A Gallery of Unusual Chinese Robots

Roland Piquepaille writes "Chinese engineers have unveiled a series of robots lately — without releasing lots of technical details about them. In the past two months, I've gathered pictures of robots which can act as waiters in restaurants in Hong Kong or pull rickshaws near Beijing. I've also found a four-finger robotic hand able to play organ, a female robot greeting tourists visiting the Sichuan Science Museum with 'ni hao' ('How are you?' in Mandarin — if my sources are correct), and even a robotic chimpanzee."

The day will come

[77Punker]

One day closer to Battletech or Gundam, whichever you prefer. Or, if Western humanoid robots catch up, Battletech vs. Gundam.

Stir in a litte Optimus Prime and I think the future looks bright.

Re:The day will come

[Touqen]

Personally, I want my own life size Megadeuce.

Re:The day will come

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever bought anything mechanical or with more then 5 moving parts from China that was designed in China as well? Like a small gas or electric powered scooter? They are cheap but COMPLETE crap. The cheapness does not offset the crapiness. I hope the chinese are not really that bad at engineering and maybe these things are designed the way they are to save every fraction of a cent. That would make sense I guess because there is no real company name on these and no reputation to protect. The majo

Sometimes, quality isn't everything

[Walt Dismal]

I'd still buy a cheap Chinese robotic vagina though, even if parts fell off. Sometimes quality isn't everything.

Sources.... Wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ni hao : Hello
Ni hao ma : How are you

Literal : You well
ma == ?

Re:Sources.... Wrong...

[umofomia]

ma is a question particle that transforms a statement into a yes-no question.

Ni hao: You well -> Hello
Ni hao ma: Are you well? -> How are you?

Re:Sources.... Wrong...

[Distinguished Hero]

I believe that you just restated the exact same thing as the post to which you replied (see "Literal : You well
ma == ?" in that post). That being said, if you want to correct the post to which you replied, you should have probably picked upon the fact that the poster neglected to include the tone marks [wikipedia.org] (specifically, the numbers associated with them in PinYin [wikipedia.org]).

Re:Sources.... Wrong...

[zakezuke]

I believe that you just restated the exact same thing as the post to which you replied (see "Literal : You well
ma == ?" in that post). That being said, if you want to correct the post to which you replied, you should have probably picked upon the fact that the poster neglected to include the tone marks (specifically, the numbers associated with them in PinYin).

Yes, it looks like Slashdot doesn't permit the use these characters, specificly the vowels with the accent marks, so one should if they have a clue g

Re:Sources.... Wrong...

[fbjon]

Technically, ni hao == You Good
ni = you
hao = good

Even more technically, no. Adding words together in one language does not make the translated words add together. Someone forgot to tell babelfish.altavista, however.

Re:

[fbjon]

Or, if you have made a better free translator, then you haven't publicized it well enough, because I've never heard of it.

Google is the most blindingly obvious other general translator, but there are many other ones for specific languages, that work a million times better.

O.K.

[Philip K Dickhead]

I am now officially creeped-out.

That was worse than looking at pictures of clowns.

Re:O.K.

[tktk]

I'll be sure to email you when they release robotic clowns.

Re:O.K.

[xstaytruex]

if that were to happen then it would be the end of the world for me

ugly robots

[No Such Agency]

Well, I always suspected the Nexus 1's would not look quite as good as Daryl Hannah...

But can they combine the...

[dohzer]

...female robot and the robot that can "play an organ" into every man's dream?

Re:But can they combine the...

[kfg]

...female robot and the robot that can "play an organ" into every man's dream?

Nooooooo, not every man's, but I think the Chinese have Mr.1055962 covered anyway:

Wanted; RealChimp [somethingawful.com]

Bottom of the page.

KFG

I for one...

[Audent]

welcome our robotic chimpanzee overlords....

can they play chess?

Re:I for one...

[ichigo 2.0]

No, but they can throw artifical feces and write works of Shakespeare if you give it a robotic typewriter.

The 1000 robotic monkeys

[Man in Spandex]

on the thousand typewriters would only manage to write "It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times"

Re:I for one...

[Monkier]

artifical feces has already been done by a Belgian artist:
http://www.cloaca.be/machines.htm [cloaca.be]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Delvoye [wikipedia.org]

How are you?

[CrazyJim1]

I asks how you're doing, but doesn't care.

Re:How are you?

[gamer4Life]

Much like many humans you see every day.

Robotic Chimpanzee?

[Distinguished Hero]

even a robotic chimpanzee

I do believe that the USA may have the prior art on that one. :)

Re:Robotic Chimpanzee?

[LearnToSpell]

No kidding. He was elected YEARS ago!

Re:Robotic Chimpanzee?

[Distinguished Hero]

I see that you catch my drift; well done, sir.

P.S. Your penny arcade link appears to be broken (404).

Re:Robotic Chimpanzee?

[kfg]

Pull his string and hear him misspeak Chinese misstranslated into English.

KFG

Re:Robotic Chimpanzee?

[Colonel Angus]

His speech subroutines are really sub-par [slate.com].

Yeah, sorry about that

[geekoid]

I created a proto type "Evil Robot tm" and when in beta it ran for office.
Just my luck that it used Bush as a front man.
stupid Chennybot.

Organ

[Anonymous Coward]

I've also found a four-finger robotic hand able to play organ

I'm guessing that one would be male.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Organ, eh'?

[fbjon]

I don't get it!

Re:Organ, eh'?

[Drooling Iguana]

It means penis!

For the love of God, man!

[jpellino]

Somebody get these people a Disneyland and get this out of their system!

(guess they don't get to Hong Kong much...)

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

un-PC comment to follow..

[fliptout]

This raises the question- why? Chinese labor is cheaper than robots, but the robots probably give better service. Who did the chinese steal this technology from? :P

Your sources are right about "ni hao"- just make sure you get the tones right.
Or you could say "wo3 mei2 tian1 kan4 ni3 nu3 hai2zi de shi2 hou4 da3 fei1ji1." Yep, try that. :D
Quick tone lesson: 1= high flat tone 2= rising tone 3= low growl piss off tone 4= falling off the wall tone

Re:un-PC comment to follow..

[dmartin]

"wo3 mei2 tian1 kan4 ni3 nu3 hai2zi de shi2 hou4 da3 fei1ji1."

Been a while since I took Chinese, but
"Every day I see your daughter's time/how long/ ...."

the da3 fei1ji1 bit has me. By feiji do you mean airoplane?

(I am asking because I want to know; I want to get back into Chinese at some point!)

explanation

[fliptout]

As another poster said, "da3 fei1ji1" means masturbate, but literally means "hit the plane."

This is the sort of thing I learned while living in China. :P
Some advice- don't attend a Chinese university to learn how to speak/read/write Chinese except for the basics. That is, unless you learn the way chinese learn- by rote memorization and reading straight from the book with no deviation. Get tutors, study a little every day, then go out and have fun and interact with people. The Chinese method for learning rea

Re:

[fangyidong]

So you didn't learn anything except the nasty combination of the beautiful chinese words.

Re:

[fliptout]

Sure I did. I attended a well respected language university in Beijing for six months (Beijing yu yan da xue, formerly known as Beijing yu yan xue yuan). I was not being serious about learning only rude things. Frankly, I know very few curse words in mandarin, and I'm not interested in learning how to speak like the nongmin. It is difficult to speak a language beautifully if you have only lived in the country for one year.

Robo-Monkeys are awesome

[Tibor the Hun]

What little kid wouldn't want one of these as their best friend:
Orangutan! [primidi.com]

Re:Robo-Monkeys are awesome

[larpon]

OMG ORGANUTAN!!1 RUN F0R LIVES!!

Re:Robo-Monkeys are awesome

[andphi]

I think it would work better as a Halloween costume than as a best friend. Between the size of the face and the mismatched eyes, that's one scary fruit-selector - in the kilo-cantlook range - somewhere between Dawn of the Dead and The Hills Have Eyes.

Re:Robo-Monkeys are awesome

[vertinox]

Good lord! What little kid would want to have one of these as their best friends... I could just just imagine the thing sitting at the end of their bed staring at them all night.

Payola back?

[Frosty Piss]

For a while, this kind of Roland crap was down to a manageable once a month, or so. But Roland's been getting a whole lot of sketchy (more than normal) stories approved the last few weeks. Is the payola thing back on track after a siesta from all the negative publicity last time?

Pointless

[PavementPizza]

There are 1.3 billion Chinese; what do they need robots for? Just round up some dissidents.

Re:Pointless

[AtomicBomb]

Planet Earth has 6 billion of human. Why do anyone need robot research?
1. Some environment are just so hazardous that you want to minimise the human exposure to it (Mars, Moon, deep sea floor, or even welding production line for car production). 2. It is research and this serves as both the aim and goal. 3. Lower end robots can actually by consumer grade electronics (e.g. Sony Aibo the dog, Robosapien etc.).

I am curious to see their robot fish. I saw a video clip of that in a conference. It was really

gang of four

[ilovechristy]

one girl, one tin man, one monkey, and an arm? - they're gearing up for the Eastern Wizard of Oz

Re:gang of four

[Twisted64]

I look forward to seeing who they cast as the Wicked Witch of the West :)

Not very interesting robots

[porkmusket]

I mean, none of those seem nearly as cool as the BigDog [bdi.com] quadriped, or the ball balancing robot [slashdot.org], or my personal favorite, R.O.B. [wikipedia.org]

Robots are awesome though, my roomba just cruised around my desk.

Bleah

[Quiet_Desperation]

Stan: "Gay"
Kenny: "Gmph"
Cartman: "Gay"
Kyle: "Liberace gay"

Although the female robot is getting close to what is desired, is there some Fourth Law of Robotics somewhere that states "A humanoid robot shall look as goofy as its designers can possibly make it."

I am NOT looking for a plastic pal that's fun to be with. I want a hot, raging female sexbot with ninja skills that can cook a mean breakfast.

Oh, geez... pop culture reference overload.

Re:zhutri

[refitman]

WTF!!!

Re:zhutri

[RuBLed]

even /. can't take all those down

The time is near ...

[freaker_TuC]

... it's happening, a group of spamming terrorists have attacked /.

your basement is not safe anymore ... run for your lives !!!

Aha, earn money!

[Devv]

What about making a servant robot constantly asking for tip in a especially rude and unavoidable way? That's the way into the millions! Anyone will help me make an army of them? On a serious note regarding the topic I think less energy should be put to making various types of robots and more energy to be put into making systems for the real human-like robots to work better. I mean, sure you can make a lot's of weird robots from cool ideas but having a better overall performance by all robots might just be b

Hand that plays organ

[hcob$]

Am I the only one that was relieved when I saw the picture of the robot hand that plays organ? I figured with slashdot, you never know.

Robot dissident and robot torturer

[Jim in Buffalo]

I'd like to see a robot Chinese dissident in a robot Chinese "reeducation camp" being "treated" by a robot Chinese government torturer. Now that would be a true reflection of the Chinese way of life.

Thanks for the wealth of information

[paxmaniac]

I mean, really.

Could you find us an article with less detail?

There is barely a hint of an idea at what these robots do, let alone how they work. Some of them look as if they could hardly be called robots. Mechanisms, or automatons perhaps. But it's very hard to tell with no video, and not even a description of how they operate.

beware

[Dukhat]

Beware of R.O.U.S.es (Robots Of Unusual Size).