I’ve never met a panda face-to-face before, but apparently they can be quite aggressive. But not the robot panda that Taiwan’s centre for Intelligent Robot Research is building. It will be friendly, sing and be my best friend.

The director of the centre says robopanda will be “very cute and more attracted to humans”. And it might even sing a “panda song”. It is the first time they are trying to build a quadrupedal robot which is presenting balance issues for the engineers. I might be cruel because panda tipping sounds kinda fun to me.

There is all other sorts of robot pandemonium at the centre. They also build robots that look like pop singers that can actually perform. A Madonna robot is mentioned. Sorry, but I already thought Madonna was a robot? [AFP]