Mr. Roboto

I'm obsessed with robots. In fact, I'll only watch a movie if it has a robot, spaceship or laser beam in it. Chris Sligh, a movie fanatic, keeps asking me dumb questions like "Have you ever seen [insert name of some chick flick]?" to which I'll reply, "Now, Chris, does that movie have a robot in it? No? Then I haven't seen it."

So of course I was thrilled to visit Wired Magazine's NextFest in New York City last weekend. It was robot heaven. Robots walking around, dancing, talking, purring. Cuddly robots, menacing robots, weird robots, half-human robots.

My favorite robot was from some company that specializes in trying to make a realistic human face for a robot. It looks around, squints, smiles and moves his mouth. Creepy. Mark [my socialite NYC cousin] was freaked out by it. From a few steps away, he thought it was a real person. But then, getting closer, he could see it was basically just a robotic torso with an animated head.

Click for a 3.6 meg WMV video clip.