While China state-owned Xinhua News Agency is using virtual news anchors, Russia-24 ‘employs’ a droopy eyed humanoid robot TV news anchor named Alex to read the news. And the result? Well, lets just say that was far less eye-pleasing. The robot that the state-owned TV used was developed by a Russian startup Promobot Labs that you may remember as the company behind the infamous runaway robot two years ago.
Anywho, the humanoid news anchor isn’t as eye-pleasing as far news anchor goes and the fact that it has a rather unsettling facial movements – thanks to the 29 motors hidden under the silicone skin – doesn’t quite help the situation. According to a report, the robot’s appearance appeared to be model after the company’s founder, Alexei Yuzhakov. It probably is. Otherwise they wouldn’t have named it Alex, right?
Alex may possessed that many motors, but the expression was anything but expressive. In fact, we’d go as far to say that it was pretty, well, creepy. The monotonous voice it had also didn’t quite help the situation very much either. But it a good start, ermmm, I think? However, not everyone was as enthused. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine why not. Anywho, instead of leading you to believe it was a not a good brilliant attempt, we shall let you be the judge by watching it in action in the video posted by The Telegraph.
This is not the first time Russian’s robotic made the headline for the wrong reason, though. Just last December, the Russian state TV mistakenly identified a Robot Boris as a real robot, which in actual fact, it was a man in a robot suit. What a blooper, eh? Well, at least Alex here is the real deal. But really, it seriously need some tweaks and also, take note not to don’t give it legs. Remember how one of yours tried to run away?
Images: The Telegraph/Promobot Labs.
Source: Futurism.
