Forget everything you hated about the Tamagotchi. Finally, the Japanese have built something (potentially) useful – a wine-identifying robot.

The two-foot green and white prototype uses infrared to analyze the chemical makeup of wine (or anything else for that matter) and then uses whiz-bang cute logic to read you the results in the kind of childlike voice you’d expect from even the most clinical Japanese machinery.

…the robot could be used in the near future at wineries to test the taste of each bottle without actually unscrewing any corks.

Wow, you mean I could go on a wine-tasting tour and come back stone cold sober? Pass…

New Robot Can Identify Wines, Cheeses [Red Orbit]