You know what they say. It ain’t over till the fat-bottomed robots start shopping. Or something like that. Robot developer tmsuk has unveiled a remote-control robot that will give you a new way to shop from the comfort of home. It’s a prototype of the telerobotic shopper, which is a modified TMSUK-4 humanoid robot with a variety of cellphone communications technology. They had a demonstration on July 10 at the Izutsuya department store in the city of Kitakyushu, Japan, where it probably made the male robot wait while it tried on clothes and asked if each one made it look fat.

In the demonstration scenario, an unwell grandmother unable to go shopping with her granddaughter sent the robot to do it for her. Using an NTT DoCoMo video-capable cellphone, the grandmother controlled the robot and did some shopping enjoy the shopping through the robot’s camera eyes.

See, I ain’t buying this. A grandmother who can use a cell phone AND a robot? The woman maneuvered the robot to the hat section, eyed what was available, and had her granddaughter model a few for her before deciding which one to purchase.

Great. Pretty soon the rich will robots in my way as I try to buy stuff to justify my meatsack existence.

[Pink Tentacle]