Creating a buzz.

Okej, detta är bland det coolaste jag någonsin varit med om!! En kille skriver här och undrar vem som ligger bakom "hubot-videosarna" på youtube och är jättenyfiken. Haha, det är ju vi!! Och det kommer snart fler, det är så jäkla roligt! :) Jag säger då det, folk kommer älska Äkta Människor!

We have no clue of who's behind what is clearly a (deep-pocketed) publicity stunt or viral marketing campaign. But okay: We take the bait. We want to find out more. We just hope this is about some awesome new J. J. Abrams robot show and not a new brand of laundry detergent.

So we need your help. Fire up your Google engine and see what you can uncover about this. If you find out who's behind this or what this is all about, we'll send you an Automaton t-shirt. Post your findings in the comment section below. (To be clear: We are not involved in this campaign or whatever this is, and we do not endorse whatever this turns out to be. We're just curious because it involves robots--killer robots!)

I did some googling myself. Searching for "Miyakki Laboratories," "Hubots," or "Natsuki Shimazu," the name of the company's "chief engineer," didn't turn up anything significant. I tend to think that the people behind this did some research. For instance, this is what "Natsuki Shimazu" says in her "interview" with the "news reporter" in the vid above:

"The Hubot is so much more than a machine, in the sense that it has what we call a genuine sonzaikan, a human presence. The improvements are actually so fast that differences between an actual human being and a Hubot are no longer visible at first glance."

Sonzaikan?! HAH HAH HAH! These guys are good. This is an actual term used by Japanese roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro and others when discussing ultra-realistic humanoids (see this article I wrote last year and this one by Tim Hornyak).

The only major thing I found was one additional video: a TV commercial for Miyakki Labs, posted on their YouTube channel, showing their new "Hubmax PHD" (seriously) humanoid servant that can fix you breakfast and has a USB port on the back of her neck:

Visst är det häftigt?! Denna reklamen fick vi se på slutfesten också. Åååh vad fint, äntligen så satsar SVT på lite annorlunda marknadsföring, men jag lovar att vi har alla legat på som bara den för att övertyga dom om att verkligen satsa!