Slashdot Mirror
Build a Robot out of a Car?
SomeRobotGuy writes "A researcher in the U.K. is in the process of building an autonomous biped robot out of a Mini Cooper r50. Its functions are controlled by six computers running RTLinux and it's powered by an internal combustion engine. And the thing's not tiny, at over 10 feet tall! The site includes videos showing some impressive results."
Now it just needs a loudspeaker and a recording of "BITE MY SHINY METAL ASS!"
They could have picked any transformer and they pick BUMBLEBEE?
The things you can do with photoshop...
The site is well camouflaged to make it seem real. The CG work is well done. It wouldn't suprise me if this is a site created by MINI. They have a long history of non-traditional advertising. They have put a MINI in the stands at a Giants Baseball game. They put them into Malls on a platform with coin slots saying $16,995 in quaters for a ride.
There best known one was putting the MINI on the roof of a Chevy Suburban and driving it arround San Francisco.
It was also recently revealed that the Weekly World News article with BatBoy Stealing a MINI was a planted article by MINI USA.
I would hate to be the other robot when this thing makes it to battle bots.
Watch the "Battery Test" video, if that isn't CGI then I'm a monkey's uncle.
Take an F-15 and turn it into Starscream.
Or, optionally, find a thirty-foot-long alien ray gun and turn it into Shockwave.
Don't forget Unicron!
The world can be wrong today for once.
Of course they are the fastest. They ran away.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
There is nothing but fluff on that site. The "sketches" have the stink of marketing all over them. Now, whenever I see a Mini Cooper, I'll be reminded of their pathetic "me too" attempt to get some attention. At least Honda's Cog ad actually entailed some technological brilliance and real work to make happen. All this does is raise the question of where the line should be drawn when it comes to making false claims of research and development in order to get free advertising. Isn't that illegal? What's the difference between what Mini is doing and what we'd think of a drug company that fabricated a bunch of bogus "technology" to imply that it had a cure for cancer for the purpose of getting free advertising?
Yeah, I guess I don't like the feeling of being duped by a marketing department.
Note to self: If I ever make a web server, don't put advertisements for it on "Error 503: Server Broke" page.
Free advertising here on Slashdot.
Cheers
VikingBrad
managed to mirror it here.
Have you guys heard of "Stealth Marketing"? 60 Minutes covered it a few months back, but basically, imagine this scenario.
You're walking down times square, and a pretty couple with exotic accents, who look and act like tourists asks you to take their photo. They hand you their digital camera. You notice it's one you've never seen or heard of before, so you snap the photo, and then ask about it, and they proceed to tell you how cool this camera is.
You've just been 'Stealth Marketed' -- the tourists are fake, actors hired to stand in Times Square asking people to take their photo.
You're sitting in Starbucks and you see a guy playing a cool game on his laptop. Pretty soon, he's letting you try the game and you're hooked. Turns out he's also an actor hired to sit in the coffee shop and get people to try the game.
This looks to me like a Stealth Marketing campaign diliberately directed at the Slashdot crowd. Note the post came from "SomeRobotGuy", who, I'll bet, is also in on this gag.
The server was supposed to get slashdotted to hell and not work properly, as that lends an air of credibility to the hack.
You're all part of a campaign directed at people like us who read Slashdot, ArsTechnica, HardOCP, and Wired. Chances are this site will make the rounds on all the hardcore tech sites, and if it makes a few people consider buying a Mini-Cooper, then the Stealth Marketing guys have done their job.
Believe me, this won't be the last time you're "hacked" by Marketing types who are getting more clever about how to direct an advertising campaign at you without you even realising you're being advertised to.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Another poster has put up a mirror, though nobody seems to have noticed the original comment.
The mirror is available here.
The page doesn't load animations properly in Opera, and relies upon Quicktime to display the Mpegs. It might work in Mozilla, but it might not.
And again, adulations aplenty to xWh3lPx for the mirror.
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