Now I’ve seen everything. The Japanese, who have always had a fascination for robots, have created a two-foot tall “Winebot” that costs about what a new car costs. But this robot can supposedly taste wine by firing off a beam of infrared light from its left arm to a bottle of Shiraz, and tell you what kind of wine it is.
According to an article by Eric Talmadge of the Associated Press, “Some of the light is absorbed and the light that returns is then analyzed in real time to determine the object’s chemical content. Researchers at NEC System Technologies and Mie University have designed the robot, a mechanical sommelier, that is able to identify dozens of different kinds of wine, cheeses and hors d’oeuvres.” It can also offer food pairings. Read the article.