Spring Wedding In Tokyo

A couple in Japan's capital Tokyo are the first in the world to be married by a robot.

Tomohiro Shibata and Satoko Inoue like robots, so much so they didn't want a priest or a judge to marry them, they wanted a robot. So, at a rooftop restaurant in Tokyo the two were joined in matrimony by Kokoro Co.'s I-FAIRY robot.

Kokoro's I-FAIRY is capable of generating natural seeming movements like head nods and arm gestures based up on the speech it has been loaded with. The couple said that as robots had brought them together - they both work in the robotics industry - having one officiate over their wedding was a natural choice.

This is all a ploy, of course, so when the robot uprising comes, we're caught off guard. Just wait, you'll see.

Source:  BBC

YESTERDAY afternoon, we walked over to Penn's Landing, where we had never been.  It was a very beautiful day.  A rock band was playing in the bandshell overlooking the Delaware River.

The lyric of theirs I remember goes like this:  

"The robots have finished their tasks/Now they're in the back room, drinking from flasks".

Not so great, but intriguing, and on that sunny afternoon it made me think about this BBC news story, that terrific movie The Philadelphia Experiment starring Michael Pare and Nancy Allen (you can see Navy vessels on the river from Penn's Landing) and my friend's college rock band, The Band From Planet 5.  They wrote lyrics like that. 

Obviously, we should wish the couple a long and happy marriage.