Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Robot Presides Over Wedding For Geeky Lovers in Japan (Where Else?)

by Amar Toor on May 17, 2010 at 09:20 AM

Robot Presides over Japanese Wedding
It's your wedding day, the single most important 24 hours of your life. You've made the arrangements, you've hired the band, the caterers and the belly dancers. You've even managed to shed 10 pounds in two weeks by eating nothing but Tabasco sauce and topsoil. But you're still worried that something could go wrong. Luckily, reliable Japanese robots are here to help.

Yesterday in Tokyo, the 4-foot, pigtailed and curiously-named 'I-Fairy' robot presided over the wedding of Satoko Inoue and her new husband, Tomohiro Shibata. From its perch at the head of the aisle, the bot led the ceremony to mechanical perfection, before asking Shibata to "Please lift the bride's veil," and raising its arms in Touchdown-Jesus celebration as they kissed. It should be mentioned, though, that the I-Fairy was actually controlled by a man hiding behind a black curtain, who spent the entire time entering commands into a computer, and repeatedly asking himself what he's doing with his life.

Although he said he would've preferred the robot to be "a bit more clever," the groom admitted that "she is very good at expressing herself" -- or at least expressing whatever her cloaked puppetmaster commanded her to express. Speaking about the unique role of robots in Japan, the bride told the AP, "I think that Japanese have a strong sense that robots are our friends. Those in the robot industry mostly understand this, but people mainly want robots near them that serve some purpose." Which is great news, of course, for the millions of unemployed robots on the streets of Tokyo.

Granted, it's not nearly as shiver-inducing as seeing a lonely Japanese man marry a virtual girlfriend, but there's still something slightly frigid about turning your wedding ceremony into a mechanized series of motions. Then again, though, she works at a robot company, and he's a professor of robotics, so bots are obviously their little "thing." You and your special someone have some sort of quirky mutual interest that brought you together. Theirs just happens to be pigtailed robots. And, honestly, it just might be ours, too. [From: AP]


Tags: biginjapan, Japan, japanese, marriage, marriage ceremony, MarriageCeremony, robot, robotics, Robots, tokyo, top, vows

Comments

12

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular