Scanner : robots

Hot or Not: Robotic Stripping?

Emily Farris — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:16:00 GMT

Stripped by a Mechanical Shovel! - video powered by Metacafe

We're both annoyed and strangely turned on by this.

[Metacafe via YBNBY]

Sloppy Seconds: Pretty Young Things

Emily Farris — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:33:00 GMT

Chelsea Clinton can't get enough of the gays. And apparently, they can't get enough of her. [Queerty]

Suri Cruise is two-years-old. And still so fucking cute. We just want to squeeze her! [People]

If you are a pedophile, you might enjoy these "sexy" pictures of Miley Cyrus. [JustJared]

The other U.S. American Miss South Carolina will work for the John McCain campaign and like such as. [Wonkette]

We still have our high school class ring somewhere. Do you? What's that all about, anyway? [Neatorama]

Wired reports from the FIRST Robotics Championship. [Wired]

Ever wonder about the origins of Harrison Ford's kind-of dorky earring? Us neither, but you might be interested to know it involved Jimmy Buffet and drunk lunch. [Yahoo!]

When we first learned that Harry Potter star Emma Watson would replace Scarlett Johansson in a Napoleon biopic, we thought about doing a Who Would You Rather? But then we remembered that Emma was just a baby. Turns out she's 18 now. God, they grow up so fast. So, uh, who would you rather? No. Sorry. That's still kind-of wrong. [People]

Sloppy Seconds: Eva Mendes' New Underwear Modeling Gig

Emily Farris — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:46:00 GMT

An Australian man was gunned down in his driveway by a robot packing a .22 semi-automatic pistol. Don't worry, though, the robots aren't taking over the world just yet. The man built the robot and programmed it to kill him.

Hey kids, if you're going to smuggle pot across international borders, why not use soda cans or text books? You know, something the kids are into these days. We hear The Hills DVDs are all the rage. We once had a boyfriend get a shit-ton of pot through airport security tucked deep into a jar of Nutella. But cans of vegetables? Hominy at that? Industrial size cans of hominy?!

If you haven't watched last night's LOST yet, then you probably don't want to click this link to find out which character is gay, gay, gay.

Speaking of gay, if you have any potentially gay kids hanging around, Good Morning America producers want to get their hands on them. No, not like that, pervert! They just want to exploit the kids in the name of journalism.

We love The Internets and all, but proposing via Twitter? After being together for fifteen years? Maybe the couple should limit their sex life to instant messages and build robot babies and take virtual tours of places they'd like to vacation together. (Sorry, we're really worried we're beginning to exist only on online, so these things kind-of get to us.)

Eva Mendes is fresh out of rehab and will soon be modeling underwear for Calvin Klein. The sexy actress is already a spokesperson CK's fragrance line, but now she'll be half nekkid and smell good.

Image of Eva Mendes NOT modeling Calvin Klein underwear via chinadaily.com.cn

96 Million People Like CSS's "Music is My Hot Hot Sex". Or Maybe Just One Robot.

Bryan Christian — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:04:00 GMT

CSS's "Music is My Hot Hot Sex" -- y'know, that song from the iPhone ad -- is the most popular video ever on YouTube. Now lest you think the world is secretly being overrun by iPhone-owning Brazilian electro-hipsters and you didn't get the memo, don't fear; it's probably just one very big, highly-automated fan.

The video's come-from-nowhere success however has left many YouTube fans asking questions about the unprecedented traffic spike, with many suggesting that the books may have been cooked.
An in-depth analysis of the YouTube statistics by blogger Andy Baio also suggests inconsistencies in the traffic surge.
Biao points out that an examination of hits compared with user ratings shows that the Brazilian video has what he described as "a very unusual 21,487-to-1 ratio" of views-to-ratings.
He calculated the average ratio for every other video in the top 10 to be 590:1, which is consistent with a ratio of 545:1 for the top 500 YouTube videos.
In other words, far fewer viewers are leaving a recommendation after watching Music is My Hot Hot Sex than is the case across the board.
This may indicate the use of an automated, non-human method to inflate the clicks.

Hey, does anyone else remember that movie Stealth from a few years ago where the sentient superplane is listening to music online and Josh Whatshisface goes "What's he downloading?" and the tech guy is like "Everything" and you're supposed to go "Wow, that's a lot of music..."? Well? What do you think? Proof that superintelligent superplanes totally exist and are into Brazlilan electro? Or can you just not handle the truth?

Caption This: Peruvian Anti-Riot Police Uniforms

Emily Farris — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:39:00 GMT

[Image via Gizmodo]

"Love and Sex With Robots" Author on The Colbert Report

Emily Farris — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:52:00 GMT

Remember back in November, we wrote about the book "Love and Sex With Robots?" The book's author, David Levy predicted we'd be engaging in hot, consensual robot sex within 30 years. Recently, Levy was on The Colbert Report, uh, defending his hypothesis.

It's Been Real

Emily Farris — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:53:00 GMT

And so ends my first week guest blogging at Scanner. It's been real... something, though I'm not quite sure what yet. Because you've all been so welcoming, I wanted to share a few things I learned about myself this week:

1. I began speaking out loud in blog talk. Me, talking to a friend: "We really want a burrito right now. From that Mexican place run by Chinese people."
2. Blogging here made me consider my own personal safety this holiday season.
3. Due to a series of unfortunate incidents in my old apartment, I was blogging while homeless, which we I think is SOOOO 2007.
4. I could be banging a robot in 28 years.
5. If I'm allowed to work in my underwear, I will.

Since I have yet to be booted, I'll be back next week. Huzzah!

Robot Love, Redux

Emily Farris — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:49:00 GMT

Yesterday, we learned that we might be marrying robots by the year 2035. And according to this article in WIRED, it appears we're well on our way.

First we meet Stair 1.0. Six-feet tall and handsome, he's the clumsy first-boyfriend robot who can "manipulate something in its environment" just not very well. He can't always follow through with tasks and sometimes breaks shit. Stair 2.0 will be able to "fail gracefully" and learn from its mistakes. Stair, however, is just a robotic hand on wheels--safe enough for now. On the creepier side of this is RobotCub:

The size and shape of a 3-year-old, RobotCub has two five-fingered hands, each of which will be covered with sensitive artificial skin made of the same stuff as the iPod's electrostatic touchwheel. It has expressive eyes, a white plastic shell that makes it look like Casper the Friendly Ghost, and a tether that runs from its back like an electronic umbilical cord into an adjacent room, where it connects to a few dozen PCs.

So, if RobotCub is redeveloped each year, and gets more skin and a few more parts, he'll be 31 and prime marriage material by 2035.