Tale of Genji-bot

Created by roboticists from Kyoto University's Robo-Garage, the gorgeously designed Genji Bot has been programmed with but one task: to soothingly recite all 1200 pages of Murasaki Shikibu's 12th century Japanese masterpiece, Tale of the Genji. It will even act out some of the passages.

Unfortunately, it's Japanese only. I'd actually be tempted by this. I've been meaning to read Tale of Genji for awhile and even purchased myself a massively thick, black matter heavy translation. I got about 50 pages in at one point. Now I just use the book to drop on wharf rats. A virtual robot geisha to read Genji to me at night would go far in finally getting me back into the novel.

Murasaki-bot recounts the world's (much debated) oldest novel [DVICE]

[#1 posted by ronzo , July 31, 2008 6:34 AM]

Cool, these are sort of like the Shakespeare robots from the Rama book series, which I always thought were neat

[#2 posted by mujadaddy , July 31, 2008 7:56 AM]

Very beautiful & very cool...

...but what about all the geisha it's putting out of work?!?!?!

[#3 posted by Anonymous , July 31, 2008 10:12 AM]

there's just one problem, it's not designed to recite all 1000 pages, nor is it for sale. It's a custom-built one-of-a-kind robot that is meant to educate people who visit a shrine built to honor the author on which it is based.

[#4 posted by monstrinho_do_biscoito , August 1, 2008 2:38 AM]

after watching the video, i particuarily like the wolverine style retractable deathblades on it's arms.

ok, it's probably meant to be a fan