Inappropriate Robot is Inappropriate

Flipping the right sock: 5 dolla, 5 dolla. Me fold you long time.

Willow Garage, the same group at UC Berkeley who programmed a Granted, the video is sped up 15-fold, so this would be the slowest handy ever, but what else would you call this?  Folding socks?  Who folds socks like that?

The PR2 is presented with two socks. It then classifies each sock as either “inside” or “outside” and flips accordingly. Once both socks are in the proper orientation, it pairs them. [BoingBoing]

Still not convincing me this is about pairing up socks.  So here’s to you, Ping Chuan Wang, Stephen Miller, Mario Fritz, Trevor Darrell, and Pieter Abbeel.  One slow handy from a robot at Berkeley, one giant leap for sexbot technology.

The video and an appropriate soundtrack to play at the same time are below.  The fun creepiness starts at about 18 seconds in.

I’m sure the guys in Beta Band would be happy to know their song is being used as a robot masturbation soundtrack.  Um, sorry you’re welcome.