Jeremy Norman’sHistoryofInformation.com Exploring the History of Information and Media through Timelines
Jeremy Norman’s
A: Augsburg-Innenstadt, Augsburg, Bayern, Germany, B: Sofia, Sofia City Province, Bulgaria
On February 9, 2014 KUKA (Keller und Knappich Augsburg), an international manufacturer of industrial robots and solutions for factory automation based in Augsburg, Germany, uploaded a video to its official YouTube channel KukaRobotGroup, teasing the audience with their new robot, the KUKA KR AGILUS, which they characterized as the "Fastest Robot on Earth." The teaser video showed a trailer of KUKA's robot competing against the German table tennis star Timo Boll at a staged match in Sofia, Bulgaria.
The full video was available on March 10, 2014. Because the video was not a real match, but a commercial with extensive computer graphic imagery (CGI), it received strong criticism from the table tennis community. However, the "match" undoubtedly achieved its purpose, as when I checked on YouTube in May 2014, the video had been viewed more than 5 million times.
The company also uploaded a video on the making of the "commercial" :
