Instead of focusing their nerd powers on important matters like finally creating a hover board, students at Cornell’s Personal Robotics Lab decided to create a robot that’s able to predict human actions. How? By using a Microsoft Kinect 3-D camera and a database of 3-D videos. The objective was to teach the robot how to use its deadly pincers hands to help you do things like open refrigerator doors, pour beers, and clean up. And if it tirelessly watches you in the bathroom long enough, you’ll no longer need a bidet! (Okay, not really.)
Say what you will about the bot’s chunky-looking design — we think he looks like Screech’s robot, Kevin, from Saved by the Bell, and Paulie’s Robot from Rocky IV. But until he takes a spill during a live demonstration like Honda’s Asimo did (video below), we’ll root for its to achieve mass production … and later curse ourselves for doing so when we all meet our doom because singularity has occured.
