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Watch robotic pole-dancers shake their actuators

At the Tobit Software booth at CeBIT, Germany, a pair of robotic pole dancers shook their groove thang.

Michelle Starr Science editor
Michelle Starr is CNET's science editor, and she hopes to get you as enthralled with the wonders of the universe as she is. When she's not daydreaming about flying through space, she's daydreaming about bats.
Michelle Starr

(Credit: Tobit Software)

At the Tobit Software booth at CeBIT, Germany, a pair of robotic pole dancers shook their groove thang.

No job is sacred any more: even the technology trade show booth babe's role has now been taken over by robots. Lexy and Tess are a pair of robotic pole dancers that drew a crowd on Monday at IT trade show CeBIT in Hanover Germany.

The pair were upgraded models for the Tobit Software booth, which has been displaying the dancers for a few years now. Designed by British artist Giles Walker, they're made from 12V motors found in cars (the kind that control the windscreen wipers), have LED arrays instead of faces and are controlled via PC, while their "male" counterpart, a DJ with a megaphone horn for a head, looks on.

Tobit altered the robots, which cost around US$39,500 each, to make them a bit more "interesting", a representative told RuptlyTV. "We changed them to get more colour, we changed them to get bigger breasts," he said, also indicating that the robots are now controllable via an Android smartphone.

The dancing itself seems rather tame — the robots stand in place and gyrate their hips a little and move their free arms — so perhaps not every human achievement can be replicated by a robot. One that could dance like Anastasia Skukhtorova? Now that would be something.

Via www.theverge.com