Robot Pancake Sorting Machine Operates With Deadly Speed, Accuracy

For today's weird video enjoyment, I bring you this bizarre promotional video for ABB Robotics and Honeytop Pancakes, in which it is revealed that ABB's robots can sort and stack pancakes at superhuman speed. The repeated shots of the robot's huge "FlexPicker™ Arms" grabbing and stacking pancakes remind me distinctly of The Matrix, in which gigantic spiderlike robots lumbered over fields of humans...occasionally pulling the plug on one, or picking one out of its pod. Of course, these pancake robots are controlled by ABB's "PickMaster™ 3.2 Software" (I'm not kidding), which appears to run on a PC nearby. What could possibly go wrong?

Stick with the video for at least a minute and a half; that's when the real weirdness begins and you actually get to see the PickMaster™ arms in action. Oh, and it should be noted that the system is capable of stacking "in excess of 400 pancakes per minute," a statistical measurement which one blogger dubbed "ppm."

Also, not to make this even weirder than it already is, the phrase "the final solution" is in fact used at about the 2:30 mark in the video. (But it is in reference to the robotic system as a business venture, not, you know, the Final Solution.)

(Via Eat Me Daily and Kottke.org.)