Asimo To Wave a Baton Around

When Honda aren't busy building the world's best examples of the world's worst driving platform, and pretending anyone working for them still knows how to build a supercar, they're trying to convince the world that their fancypants robot ASIMO is anything other than a nifty puppet that falls down stairs a lot.

News has come in that ASIMO is preparing to conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, along with international superstar violinist Yo-Yo Ma. Don't get me wrong, I think it's brilliant that anyone can achieve superstardom outside of the 17th century by playing a violin really well, so I've no doubt Ma's performance will be sensational. But the idea that ASIMO "conducting" the show is anything other than a code-driven choreographed effort backed by hours of technicians programming each and every little diddle of its fingers and twist of its wrists, is just... well as I said, it's one big puppet show.

If you want to impress me, Honda—and I know you do, I read the internal report—get another 7 ASIMOs, and teach them all to dance. QRIO nailed it years ago, and that poor little guy isn't even around anymore.

Alas, the project's aim is to revive interest in music education for the children of Detroit, so I suppose there's only so much vitriol I can justify here. But if I see a spate of adults in 20 years driving Integras and listening to classical music, it might be more than I could take.

[via BusinessWire]