There comes a time in every man’s life when he suddenly realizes what he was born to do.

Like most adults who play air hockey more than once a year, I consider myself the best air hockey player alive. I’m sure 80% of you missed the first half of that sentence and are already in the comments typing BULLSHIT BRANDON I’M THE BEST AIR HOCKEY PLAYER. It’s the nature of the game. The Japanese have compromised that delicate balance of machismo by creating an air hockey robot capable of inhuman speed and accuracy, as well as adaptive reasoning.

We’re through the looking glass, people.

Japanese researchers at Chiba University’s Namiki Lab have developed an air-hockey robot that is skillful enough to compete against human players. It’s not the first air-hockey robot developed, but the team led by Professor Akio Namiki has upped the ante: their robot changes its strategy based on its human opponent’s playing style.

The system consists of an air-hockey table, a Barrett four-axis robotic arm, two high-speed cameras, and an external PC. It builds on the lab’s work with high-speed tracking. Previously, the researchers (in collaboration with University of Tokyo’s Ishikawa Oku Lab) paired a ultrafast vision system with a dexterous robot hand to juggle balls and fold towels, but here it tracks the puck and opponent’s paddle. The position data from the camera images is then processed by the external PC, which determines the robot’s next move. The robot is tracking the game at an insanely fast rate of 500 frames per second. Which means that, from the robot’s point of view, its human opponent is moving at a laughably slow pace. It’s like the robot is playing the game in a Matrix-style bullet-time frame. (via IEEE Spectrum)

Here’s the monster in action.

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This manages to be weird, cool and touching all at the same time. Nick LeGrande, a kid with severe aplastic anemia, was able to throw out the first pitch at an Oakland Athletics game from 1,800 miles away with the help of a robot. An absolute must-see. And the kid’s got good form! (h/t to Bob’s Blitz)

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Links

Dave Grohl Drops The Hammer On Singing Competition Reality TV Shows Like ‘American Idol’ |UPROXX|

The 12 Most Intriguing 2013 Emmy Ballot Decisions |Warming Glow|

Craig Robinson’s This is the End premiere date assembled her own stripper pole |Film Drunk|

Jimmy Kimmel Humiliates Miami Heat Fans |With Leather|

‘The Terminator’: Five Reasons Why Paramount Shouldn’t Bring It Back |Gamma Squad|

J-Kwon Reappears, Disses Pusha T & Odd Future In New Song, “Pushing The Odds” |Smoking Section|

The Sex Cannon Lives |Kissing Suzy Kolber|

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Quick, name three things that don’t have anything to do with each other!

1. cheesy old sitcoms
2. New England Patriots DT Vince Wilfork
3. roomba

Now, put them all together. What do you get? ‘At Home With The Wilforks!’

When Vince Wilfork from the New England Patriots and his wife Bianca are home with their kids, they just want to enjoy themselves and not worry about getting things done around the house. That’s why they’re huge fans of iRobot. Check out a day in the life of Vince, his family and their robots.

I love this so much, especially the fact that the message seems to be, “buy a robot so your wife won’t yell at you when you start throwing food at your children.” Also, how horrible must their regular lives be if the mom leaves the house and comes back hours later to find everyone in the same couch hole as when they left, and that’s a WIN?

No matter how good these commercials get (and I hope there are at least a hundred more … you know, for syndication rights), they’ll always be the second-best TV roomba appearance:

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Here’s a video of a robot throwing out the first pitch at a Detroit Tigers game. Sad truth: he failed a drug test right after this, and we won’t see him again until next season. Baseball, everybody! (via It’s Always Sunny In Detroit)

- Follow us on Twitter @withleather
- Follow me personally @MrBrandonStroud and Burnsy @MayorBurnsy
- Like us on Facebook.

Links

20 Reminders Of Why We Fell In Love With ‘The Office’ |Warming Glow|

Bow Wow’s Twitter Was Conveniently Hacked After Someone Posted A Picture Of Him Sleeping With A Man Online |UPROXX|

LL Cool J Broke A Hobo’s Jaw |Film Drunk|

Best And Worst Of Raw: Tonight’s The Night (To Retire Via Tout) |With Leather|

Hey Star Wars Nerds — Real Life Speeder-Inspired Hover Bikes! |Gamma Squad|

10 Sexually Absurd R&B Songs From The ’90s |Smoking Section|

DO NOT SERVE FOR REASON OF GINGER HAMMERING |Kissing Suzy Kolber|

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That song makes everything funnier.

- Follow us on Twitter @withleather
- Follow me personally @MrBrandonStroud and Burnsy @MayorBurnsy
- Like us on Facebook.

Links

UPROXX Live Q&A With ‘Archer’s’ Amber Nash And Lucky Yates, AKA The Voices Of Pam Poovey And Doctor Krieger - “Is Lucky your real name, or do people call you that because of the time you slipped in pee-pee and got a structured cash settlement?” [UPROXX]

Here’s The Mitt Romney/Eminem Mashup You’ve All Been Waiting For - On the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs, but he keeps on forgetting what he wrote down. [UPROXX]

5 Artists You Missed At SXSW While Waiting In Line To See Rick Ross - Rick Ross should’ve performed all four seconds of his verse from ‘Monster’, threw up his hands, yelled “THANK YOU AUSTIN” and disappeared. [Smoking Section]

Michael Bay And Michaelangelo Respond To The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Kerfuffle - “Relax, friends, I’m working with a guy in a TMNT shit from Hot Topic and he and I think aliens are awesome, so shut up. The first draft of our script is just the words ‘green explosion’ written on 150 sheets of paper.” [Gamma Squad]

Cousin Oliver from the Brady Bunch would like to report a Ninja Turtle sodomy - Meanwhile, ’3J’ from ‘Family Matters’ would like to report that he is extremely hungry. [Film Drunk]

5 Bleak British Television Series That Will Kick In Your Pretty American Teeth - ‘Fawlty Towers’ should be on here, that sh*t was bleak. Poor Basil Fawlty can’t get one second of peace in his entire life. [Warming Glow]

The Cast Of “American Pie”: Then & Now - This is just an excuse to juxtapose Tara Reid photos, isn’t it? Also, Shannon Elizabeth needs to start aging somewhere other than the neck. [Buzzfeed]

Kimmel Unveils Rick Santorum-Approved Pornography - Not looking forward to this guy being President and me having to masturbate with a handful of gravel. [HuffPost Comedy]

Modern-Day Icarus - Not interested in seeing this guy’s contraption again unless he’s plummeting down a cliffside during a mission in Red Dead Redemption. [High Definite]

10 Skateboarding Sneakers For People Who Can’t Stand Skateboarders - My awesome David Otunga-style argyle Vans better be on here somewhere. [Brobible]

16 Celebrities With Mustache Eyebrows - The Internet, ladies and gentlemen. [The FW]

Amir Sayoud is a lot of things. He’s an Algerian footballer currently playing as an attacking midfielder for Egyptian side Al-Ahly, he’s the love-child of Tom Haverford and Jean-Ralphio from “Parks and Recreation” — but I know what he really is.

Watch the video. It’s making the rounds on the Internet today, showing up on Dirty Tackle (and anywhere with “fail” in the title) as a supreme example of someone trying to pull off a cheap soccer move and eating grass. That should be the end of it, but it looked familiar to me, so I flipped back through some of my earlier posts from this summer and realized his stutter-step, faceplant and harmless dribbler to the goalkeeper was nearly identical to the epic fail of the Japanese Robot Soccer Cat. Yes, it’s my theory that this isn’t a “fail”, but the best kick from a robotic Japanese soccer playing cat who has entered Mark II and had his exoskeleton-covering kitty costume replaced humanoid flesh.

Don’t believe me? Watch the video below and compare the shots yourself.

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