KIST's Ahra bot
posted Mar 29th 2005 11:28AM
Apparenty the Korea Institute of Science and Technology didn't want anyone to think that their new Maru humanoid
robot (which they introduced earlier this year as the
"world's smartest robot") was a swinging bachelor or
anything, because they've just introduced a new "female" companion for Maru named "Ahra". What makes it a fembot? The
Ahra reportedly has a "feminine" voice and is orange instead of blue, but otherwise the Ahra is about the same as the
Maru, which means that it's 150cm tall, weighs 67kg, and is controlled by a wirelessly-connected PC rather than an
onboard computer (the semi-unsettling part, at least for anyone threatened by gendered robots, is that both Maru and
Ahra are controlled by the same PC).
[Via Near Near Future]
With just a different voice and color, I think it's more pre-op transgender than female.
I saw the video.
Anyone who see the video of it realizes its voice is pre-recorded.
This is shameful.