John Henry the samurai racing a tireless killer robot

Yaskawa celebrated its 100th birthday by pitting one of its Motoman-MH24s against a samurai in a sword-swinging contest, proving once and for all that if you need to chop bamboo into small pieces without having to walk around, you need a robot, not a human.

It's not just samurai who have to fear replacement by robots — here's a giant robot arm at the Torino hackspace that makes mean, abstract ceramic coil-pots.

(via JWZ)