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A Gallery of Unusual Chinese Robots
Roland Piquepaille writes "Chinese engineers have unveiled a series of robots lately — without releasing lots of technical details about them. In the past two months, I've gathered pictures of robots which can act as waiters in restaurants in Hong Kong or pull rickshaws near Beijing. I've also found a four-finger robotic hand able to play organ, a female robot greeting tourists visiting the Sichuan Science Museum with 'ni hao' ('How are you?' in Mandarin — if my sources are correct), and even a robotic chimpanzee."
One day closer to Battletech or Gundam, whichever you prefer. Or, if Western humanoid robots catch up, Battletech vs. Gundam.
Stir in a litte Optimus Prime and I think the future looks bright.
Ni hao : Hello
Ni hao ma : How are you
Literal : You well
ma == ?
I am now officially creeped-out.
That was worse than looking at pictures of clowns.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Robotic chimpanzees? Sorry guys, the RNC has a head start on you there.
FP?
...female robot and the robot that can "play an organ" into every man's dream?
welcome our robotic chimpanzee overlords....
can they play chess?
I am a leaf on the wind
I asks how you're doing, but doesn't care.
God spoke to me.
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
obviously was intended to cater to a certain kind of folk. Being made mostly of silver, it's quite clear that the creator either doesn't like vampires and doesn't want them to enjoy his invention, or he plans to use his robo-child as a vampire-tracking/slaying weapon.
It's so obvious..I mean, look at the face on the thing. It's almost as if it's saying "zomg a vampire! let's go kill it, father!"
I see through the lies.
I've also found a four-finger robotic hand able to play organ
I'm guessing that one would be male.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It isn't wrong - ni hao does mean basically "how are you", it is just that it isn't asked as a literal question, but rather an informal greeting.
The same thing as "ni hao ma" in Cantonese would be "nei ho ma". "Ma" is a sentence-final particle.
Ni hao: You well -> Hello
Ni hao ma: Are you well? -> How are you?
Somebody get these people a Disneyland and get this out of their system!
(guess they don't get to Hong Kong much...)
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Except an astounding total of five (5) pictures, none of them very detailed, or very high-quality, of an astounding total of five (5) robots, none of them very special. All IMHO, of course.
... uh, I think the Canadian version is called a "car".
This raises the question- why? Chinese labor is cheaper than robots, but the robots probably give better service. Who did the chinese steal this technology from? :P
:D
Your sources are right about "ni hao"- just make sure you get the tones right.
Or you could say "wo3 mei2 tian1 kan4 ni3 nu3 hai2zi de shi2 hou4 da3 fei1ji1." Yep, try that.
Quick tone lesson: 1= high flat tone 2= rising tone 3= low growl piss off tone 4= falling off the wall tone
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
What little kid wouldn't want one of these as their best friend:
Orangutan!
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
I believe that you just restated the exact same thing as the post to which you replied (see "Literal : You well
ma == ?" in that post). That being said, if you want to correct the post to which you replied, you should have probably picked upon the fact that the poster neglected to include the tone marks (specifically, the numbers associated with them in PinYin).
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
For a while, this kind of Roland crap was down to a manageable once a month, or so. But Roland's been getting a whole lot of sketchy (more than normal) stories approved the last few weeks. Is the payola thing back on track after a siesta from all the negative publicity last time?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Does this mean we can FINALLY be rid of Chinese people??!?
on the thousand typewriters would only manage to write "It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times"
There are 1.3 billion Chinese; what do they need robots for? Just round up some dissidents.
Viper is the preferred editor of the Emacs operating system.
Technically, ni hao == You Good
ni = you
hao = good
All rook same.
really 867993
Karma schkarma
In other words, ma means amirite?!?
one girl, one tin man, one monkey, and an arm? - they're gearing up for the Eastern Wizard of Oz
I believe that you just restated the exact same thing as the post to which you replied (see "Literal : You well
ma == ?" in that post). That being said, if you want to correct the post to which you replied, you should have probably picked upon the fact that the poster neglected to include the tone marks (specifically, the numbers associated with them in PinYin).
Yes, it looks like Slashdot doesn't permit the use these characters, specificly the vowels with the accent marks, so one should if they have a clue gone with... I believe ni(3) hao(3) ma? (i and a with inverse ^) is correct for Mandarin, where if you were using njstar's Cantonese input you would type in "Nei ho ma?" IIRC.
As far as a translation, my favorite has always been "You good, 'eh?", not to poke too much fun at Canadians but the popular use of the Canadian English interrogative particle "'eh?" is a good way to communicate exactly what the words mean.
But as for the poster, they were close enough to being correct. The problem in looking up such details is books tend to list Chinese as a single language, and not specificly say which particular Chinese one is talking about, and the phrase "ni hao ma?" tends to be listed without the tone marks, as is normal for Chinglish.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
..artificial evolution-of-the-species
I'd still buy a cheap Chinese robotic vagina though, even if parts fell off. Sometimes quality isn't everything.
I mean, none of those seem nearly as cool as the BigDog quadriped, or the ball balancing robot, or my personal favorite, R.O.B.
Robots are awesome though, my roomba just cruised around my desk.
Stan: "Gay"
Kenny: "Gmph"
Cartman: "Gay"
Kyle: "Liberace gay"
Although the female robot is getting close to what is desired, is there some Fourth Law of Robotics somewhere that states "A humanoid robot shall look as goofy as its designers can possibly make it."
I am NOT looking for a plastic pal that's fun to be with. I want a hot, raging female sexbot with ninja skills that can cook a mean breakfast.
Oh, geez... pop culture reference overload.
The problem is that nobody really wanted to get it.
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What about making a servant robot constantly asking for tip in a especially rude and unavoidable way? That's the way into the millions! Anyone will help me make an army of them? On a serious note regarding the topic I think less energy should be put to making various types of robots and more energy to be put into making systems for the real human-like robots to work better. I mean, sure you can make a lot's of weird robots from cool ideas but having a better overall performance by all robots might just be better.
+1 Agree -1 Disagree
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
I don't get it!
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
As far as I'm concerned, if the first thing you have listed in your article is a "DIGG THIS!" button, then you're nothing but an attention whore. Why do we post links to useless blogs that just copy articles from somewhere else?
... it's happening, a group of spamming terrorists have attacked /.
... run for your lives !!!
your basement is not safe anymore
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Am I the only one that was relieved when I saw the picture of the robot hand that plays organ? I figured with slashdot, you never know.
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
I'd like to see a robot Chinese dissident in a robot Chinese "reeducation camp" being "treated" by a robot Chinese government torturer. Now that would be a true reflection of the Chinese way of life.
This sig, aah-ah, is comin' like a ghost-sig...
I mean, really.
Could you find us an article with less detail?
There is barely a hint of an idea at what these robots do, let alone how they work. Some of them look as if they could hardly be called robots. Mechanisms, or automatons perhaps. But it's very hard to tell with no video, and not even a description of how they operate.
Since you bring it up, it's your fault that babelfish doesn't do a better job. You forgot to spend the time and money to make a better free translator.
Or, if you have made a better free translator, then you haven't publicized it well enough, because I've never heard of it.
Beware of R.O.U.S.es (Robots Of Unusual Size).
As another poster said, "da3 fei1ji1" means masturbate, but literally means "hit the plane."
:P
This is the sort of thing I learned while living in China.
Some advice- don't attend a Chinese university to learn how to speak/read/write Chinese except for the basics. That is, unless you learn the way chinese learn- by rote memorization and reading straight from the book with no deviation. Get tutors, study a little every day, then go out and have fun and interact with people. The Chinese method for learning really sucks, IMO.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
It means penis!
I created a proto type "Evil Robot tm" and when in beta it ran for office.
Just my luck that it used Bush as a front man.
stupid Chennybot.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Well, I always suspected the Nexus 1's would not look quite as good as Daryl Hannah...
Freedom: "I won't!"
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.