Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

'Transformer' BMW Turns Into A Giant Robot (vice.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the robots-in-disguise dept.

An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes Motherboard: Real-life Transformers are apparently already a thing thanks to a Turkish company called Letvision. They can't do battle with Decepticons, but they can turn their heads from side to side and move their arms and fingers and, erm, shoot smoke from between their legs. Oh, and they can do the whole changing from a 2013 BMW to an upright robot bit [video]. That's pretty cool, too.

But of course there's a catch. Each of the four available Transformers (which Letvision gave the copyright-friendly name of "Letrons") has a functional steering wheel, but you can only "drive" them remotely because Letvision stuffed the seating spaces with the hydraulics and electronics needed for the conversion.
Letvision's demo video has the clever title "Rise of LETRONS", and shows the vehicle spontaneously beginning its transformation after a newscaster announces, "Our country is under invasion by extraterrestrials."

7 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Re:A better idea by Joce640k · · Score: 2

    Please pay attention, there's already several of those on the market.

    https://encrypted.google.com/s...

    --
    No sig today...
  2. Re:Disappointing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    If they could turn BMW drivers into pleasant people we'd all be impressed.

  3. Re: Disappointing by itomato · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, definately more of a GoBot.

  4. I hate this "a thing" bullshit by epyT-R · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Especially when it's used as a justification in an argument ("sorry, that's not a thing"). It's even worse than abuse of the word 'literal.'

    1. Re:I hate this "a thing" bullshit by Pikoro · · Score: 2, Funny

      It's literally even worse than abuse of the word 'literal', which is a thing.

      FTFY

      --
      "Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
    2. Re:I hate this "a thing" bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      You should read this.

  5. Re:Not really what I'd consider a 'robot' by myrdos2 · · Score: 2

    Having worked in robotics, I can tell you that there are three levels of performance that people use to evaluate robots:

    1. Can it navigate around obstacles?

    2 .Can it get me a beer?

    3. Can it find Sarah Connor?

    Saving mankind from Megatron has got to be a 4 at least.