Jules: yet another creepy robot

Jules was created by David Hanson of Hanson Robotics. Jules: another creepy robot

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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The movements that he makes with his eyes are the only thing that kept me from thinking that this was actually a real guy.
dnafrequency

If you’re gonna make your robot a douchebag, at least try harder to make him a funny douchebag.
minamisan

it’s missing two vital things:
(a) the view from his POV, showing everything in red with streaming data telling him to hunt and kill:
(b) the ending where he malfunctions and sparks/smoke start pouring from his orifices.
mr.skeleton

You can totally tell that he’s wearing a toupee. Robots shouldn’t be ashamed of their baldness or jealous of mammalian fur.
arkizzle

Creepy indeed, but the eyes are quite good.
Lydia9

I’m thinking that our new robot overlords are going to get beat up or knocked over (or whatever) a LOT in high school.
isaacb2

A better robot would know you say “fewer cars,” not “less cars.”

They’ll never take over the world if they can’t master the simple rules of English grammar.
arkizzle

Lydia, hah!
arkizzle

Skeleton, hahÂ²!
Peaceflag2007

how is this different than the animatronic people from Disneyland?

Was it composing that speech on the fly?

(I hope not!)
Anonymous

Looks like the kid from There Will Be Blood.

Eli or whatever his name was.

“I AM A FALSE PROPHET!”

(my reCAPTCHA says “unlined flesh.”)
Phikus

I’m holding out for the Ruk model or the Andrea model for my money. 75 years after that we might finally get to Data / Lore, with a lot of smoking circuitry in between.
Nerdberockin

Where’s Deckard when you need him? That’s replicant talk that thing is espousin’.
atteSmythe

Another robot that randomly furrows its brow, just to show it can.
gobo

I’m with Peaceflag. Not to sound naive, but comparing this to the Audio-Animatronics at, say, the American Adventure attraction at EPCOT… which have had facial and body articulation, walk up stairs (with the help of a hidden crane), and have performed their show ten times a day for the last twenty years or so… what does this do besides add a furrowed brow?
Agies

Reminds me of Seaman for some reason. God, I loved that game.
absimiliard

I was going to post about how much I hate these Uncanny Valley crossing robots, but then I read Lydia’s comment.

Now I feel sorry for them instead.

-abs was the “odd” kid who got beat up on the schoolyard every day during recess, and he hasn’t forgotten it, and he doesn’t forgive, and if Jimmy McKee ever comes looking for a job to abs he’ll learn that fact, guess that makes him the actually human incarnation of the Uncanny Valley . . . bummer.
Anonymous

They should at least give it some lowkey expressionless bored dialog and an appropriate voice to match its appearance.

Okay, gauntlet is tossed. Time for readers here to overdub some natural sounding dialog on top of this video and post to YouTube.
Hanglyman

If they could just make the movement smoother so he doesn’t jerk around with every change of expression, it would actually be pretty convincing. Or, at least, even creepier.
obeyken

ew.
laffmakr

Guess it’s time.

Hail Robot Overlords!
d13hwt

HE’S BORED! AND HAS THE EYES OF A KILLER!

Fear.
Fayanora

*Bows* BY YOUR COMMAND!
humanpower

Ha, ha, laugh it up. This is all going to be very funny when we’re holed-up in basements with anything that can be used as a weapon, listening to the disjoined, clanking sound of robot footsteps growing ever closer.
Sork

I will call this bot Frank because it’s frank about its world domination plans. Also the english accent is a dead giveaway that it’s evil.