Well — you guys were right. As it turns out, it was actually a pair of animators who fooled the internet.
Not sure what we’re talking about? Last month, the [Kuka Robot Group] put out a highly polished video showing an industrial robot playing table tennis against the apparent world champion of the sport — it was extremely well done and entertaining to watch, but unfortunately… also fake. Weeks after the first [Kuka] video came out, someone named [Ulf Hoffmann] released another video, a small table tennis playing robot that looked almost feasible.
As some of our readers pointed out:
The movements seemed unnatural for the size of the servos and arm structure. ~ James
CGI. As others have pointed out, the shadow of the arm disappears when the robot is show from the side, even though they were added in the other shots. ~ Brandon
My cgi tip off was the cable under the table. It stretches instead of sliding around. ~ Aj
Notice it’s running Outlook Express and Internet Explorer – no self respecting hacker/maker would run those apps – lol. ~ vonskippy
