April Fool’s Day seems to have returned in December, this year! The hi-tech Robot Boris, introduced at a Russian tech show, who could walk, talk and dance just like a human, has indeed, turned out to be a man, in real. The organizers of the show held in the city of Yaroslavl used the lively robot to spark up the excitement in the event, making him dance to a pop song. They, however, never claimed that the robot was real.
Here comes the confusion!
In a footage of Robot Boris, Russian state television shot at the youth forum dedicated to robotics claimed that it was an actual robot.
“Robot Boris has already learned to dance and he’s not that bad,” Russia-24 said in the broadcast, reported ABC.
And of course, the video took over the internet like a wildfire. Later on, a Russian website, TJournal went on to investigate the authenticity of the hi-tech robot and found that it lacked in terms of sensors, showed human-like movements. The website posted a few questions like Where were Boris’s external sensors? Why did the robot make so many “unnecessary movements” while dancing? questioning the legitimacy of the hi-tech robot.
Another picture of the robot posted by MBKh Media slightly revealed the neck of the person in the costume, putting all the speculations to rest. And so, the hullabaloo of the hi-tech robo-episode came to an end with a funny disclosure. For, the robot Boris was actually a man clad in costume. The realistic robot costume called Alyosha the Robot costs as huge as 250,000 roubles (£2,975).
На молодежном форуме Путина показали «самого современного робота Бориса». Но это просто человек в костюме «Робот Алеша…
Видео: «Россия 24» pic.twitter.com/iHUtAoxUMo
— МБХ Медиа (@MBKhMedia) December 12, 2018
The description of the costume Alyosha on the official website of the makers says that the costume weighing 10 kgs is “an almost complete illusion that you have a real robot”. Now, that’s what we call a non-seasonal April Fool, isn’t it?