At last weekend’s Beijing’s College Student Robotics Competition, some 300 people from 99 teams from across China and Taiwan showed off robots that could play five-a-side soccer (a la the Robocup) and dance like Michael Jackson. There was even one that danced to PSY's “Gangnam Style” song (or, if you like, “Open Condom Style”).Something isn’t quite compatible here but the effort is applaudable. Is a hawkish analyst looking at this news, and news of China’s new aircraft carrier, and getting nervous? Fortunately, this little PSY-bot is nowhere close to being self aware. How different that is from the human upon which it’s based, I’m not sure.A Korean video features a whole team of Gangnam Style robots, which like the Beijing one, appear to be part of the off-the-shelf Bioloid robots. They’re made in Korea, which, in addition to strange, viral pop music, is also producing robot teachers.Really stretching the robot definition is the iCubot edition. Apparently it’s an MP3 player that dances.The iCubot description makes the hard sell:Are you ready to hang out with your friends at night? Apart from loads of alcohol, you need some exciting music and flashing light. This dancing speaker is just the right one that helps you, in all aspects, to be a competence host.Here’s hoping that Philip K. Dick android never learns to dance.
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