James

The Dail Mail often has interesting tidbits to amuse. 
Today Eli brings news of James.  James of course is the Joint Action in Multimodal Embodied Systems, in other words, your friendly robot bartender project funded by the EU, but for James to find employment, he has to recognize when the customers want a drink.  To better understand this researchers at the Universitaet Bielefeld, a bunker near and dear to Eli's heart, have studied how people get James' attention or better put what James has to know to fetch Eli a drink

. . .nine out of 10 thirsty customers adopted the subtle approach of deliberately facing the bar, which is the most successful for getting noticed and served, according to the study.

By contrast, only one in 15 customers looked at their wallets to signal that they would like to place an order while fewer than one in 25 customers gestured at the bartender.

Those not needing to quench their thirst subconsciously maintained a small distance to the bar and turned away from it by chatting to friends instead, signalling to staff that they did not want service, the scientists said.

The study, published in online journal Frontiers in Psychology, looked at recordings of customers at nightclubs in Edinburgh and Germany to analyse how their body language attracted the bar staff’s attention.

Indeed the week is rich..