Play Ping Pong with The Terminator!

Meet TOPIO 3.0, the death-machine-looking ping-pong-playing robot. Made by Vietnam’s first-ever robotics firm, TOSY, the bipedal humanoid uses two 200-fps cameras to detect the ball as it leaves the opponent’s paddle.

TOPIO’s "brain" analyzes the ball’s path to choose the best return. Last fall, TOPIO 3.0 debuted at the International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo.

At six feet tall, 264 pounds and with 39 independent points capable of movement (such as rotation) throughout its body, the chiseled robot looks pretty badass, but it hasn’t beaten a human quite yet.  Ho Vinh Hoang, TOSY’s president, hopes that a newer version of TOPIO, which will have a more flexible arm and be able to learn on the fly, will win a match in the near future.  Possibly at Automatica, an automation trade show, to be held this June in Munich.

Hoang’s ultimate goal: a TOPIO in every home, not just to play ping-pong but to help with household chores and other tasks.

Other tasks?  So, like, killing your neighbors with its bare hands?  Ripping your face off if you beat it at ping pong?  #nothankyou.  I would rather not have my heart ripped out of chest and then shown to me while it's still beating.