Robot Does Interpretive Dance of Delay’s Resignation

Oh those loveably weird Japanese robot engineers. Just when you thought they might have had their fill of bots that dance, play musical instruments, and flash lights and bleep and bloop along to your iPod, a company called Speecys has announced a robot that can act out Internet content to delight the whole family.

Called the ITR (“Internet Renaissance”), the foot tall robot uses something called RTML (“Robot Transaction Markup Language”) to present Internet contact in a form that the robot can interpret in sound, motion, facial expressions and speech. The company is hoping that RTML will become a standard for Web-to-Bot translation and that robots like the ITR will become a common way for families to get their news, information, weather reports, and entertainment news.

Let’s try a little thought experiment to see how this would work. Here are some of today’s top stories. Imagine a 12″ bot on your dining room table dancing, lighting up, and making grunts and groans while delivering these items in one of those slightly unnerving synthetic voices:

*Delay Resigns from House
*Protestors and Police Clash in Paris
*Saddam Accused of Genocide
*Tom Cruise Gets Candid About His Dyslexia

Actually, now that I think about it, I can’t get one of these robo-clowns acting out my daily news fast enough. Jon Stewart may soon be out of a job.

[Via Pink Tentacle]