Gizmodo: actroid

First Fembot Commercial Ever Heralds Imminent Robot Porn Market

Jesus Diaz — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:20:00 EDT

Those crazy Japan-addicts from the Pink Tentacle have grabbed the first commercial ever made by a fembot. Actroid DER-2 stars in a 15-second TV ad titled "The Woman Who Doesn't Rust", promoting an insect repellent and sunscreen spray. From afar, she looks hey-babe-how-you-doin' kind of good, but then they have to cut to a close-up and almost gave me a heart attack. Why a fembot needs sunscreen is beyond me. Lube after a few Old Fortrans, on the other side, it's a completely different story. [Pink Tentacle]

Rent a Snario Fembot: $3,500 For Five Days

Jason Chen — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 17:10:27 EDT

This Sanrio Actroid DER2 has more facial expressions tha previous Actroid DER, plus it's thinner and smarter (which is what really matters). She can coordinate her motions with her voice using pneumatic pressure actuators, and is generally a pretty good substitute for flesh-based Wal-Mart greeters.

She's not for sale, but you can rent her for five days if you've got $3,500. I suspect the first thing you'd do is to get her out of that Hello Kitty shirt. Imply what you want to that last sentence. For some reason we expected a deeper voice than the one currently programmed in. Not a Kathleen Turner, but not an 8-year-old child either. – Jason Chen

Bonus video after the jump.

Actroid DER2 fembot [New Launches]

Korea's Ever-1 Android

gizmodo.com — Thu, 04 May 2006 12:12:58 EDT

Scientists from the Korean Institute for Industrial Technology recently unveiled a new android capable of showing expressions on her face, only the second android to do this after Japan's Actroid. The Ever-1 takes its name from the Biblical Eve plus the r from "robot", can understand about 400 words and make eye contact while talking. We have to confess that we don't really care about any of this, only that we're looking forward to the day that Korea and Japan get both their androids to the point where they can, you know, fight each other. With lasers and missiles, even.

Korea Unveils World's Second Android [Digital Chosunilbo]
Korean Scientists Develop Female Android [Korea Times, via I4U News]

Actroid...Just Because

tgrumet — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 11:26:27 EST

I'll admit it, there's not much to say about this life-sized robot. I mean, it's definitely female, and really life-like, but I kind of just had to put the picture up because it's so disturbing. As of now, the ACTROID can't actually move because it's glued to the floor, but it seems to be a real robot that will, at some point, do other things. I promise to bring more information as it's available, though in a way, I kind of hope the madness stops here.

Robot or Human? Here's ACTROID [Akihabara News]