Robots turn heads at high-tech fair

HANOVER - Agence France-Presse

A man adjusts a pole dancing robot on the Tobit Software stand prior to the opening of the CeBIT IT fair on March 5, 2012 in Hannover, central Germany. AFP photo

Of all the weird and wacky futuristic gadgets and inventions at this year’s CeBIT, the world’s biggest high-tech fair, few have turned heads like a pair of pole-dancing robots.

The sleek, white, life-sized humanoids, with camera-shaped lights as heads, gyrate suggestively to the music, provided by a third “DJ” robot, with a megaphone for a head, who bops around the stage in time to the beat.

The stand was already proving one of the most popular at the CeBIT, which threw open its door to exhibitors yesterday.

The trio were manufactured from old car parts, explained Julian Hangschlitt, 19, who described himself as “event manager by day and part-time DJ by night.”

“Last year, we had a pair of real dancers. This year, we thought, ‘well, we’re coming to CeBIT, it’s a tech fair, we should have some robots instead’,” he added.

The “dancers,” designed by British robot-maker-cum-artist Giles Walker, are driven by old car motors and their moves are controlled by computer via wireless technology. But despite being made from scrap, the robots do not come cheap. If you want to hire these very exotic dancers for your next party, it will set you back around 30,000 euros ($40,000).

CeBIT is the world’s top IT fair, this year pulling in 4,200 exhibitors from 70 countries ranging from tech giants like Microsoft, Facebook and Google to single entrepreneurs with a bright idea.

The two main themes of the fair, which runs until March 10, are cloud computing -- or storing your data remotely -- and “managing trust,” the hot-topic of Internet security.