It will probably be teased for being a vegetarian too.

However the scariest part is when the real sharks kidnaps this roboshark, and one of them disguises and returns to the base...

Let the Dr Evil joke begin!

Good one Noryungi! I'm sure there were tons of us slashdotters who were saving up their wit and creativity for a post like this.

I imagine there are slashdotters out there who have mountains of In Soviet Russia, Old Korean People, Sharks with Friggin Lasers, goatse, and Microsoft Trolls just WAITING to be unleashed. It's been a long time since we could use the Sharks with Friggin Lasers troll/joke, so this would have been a perfect story to use it...

But what do you do? You give the goahead for us to make the joke! You killed the surprise! You made all those trolls out there look... *gasp* unoriginal! This will not stand!

Now, all those posts will be -1 Troll instead of +5 Funny! You killed slashdot culture! You bastard! Timothy, quick! Do something! Censor him! Anything!

----

On another note... the article tickled me to no end as Cousteau referred to the shark kind of like a "retarded cousin from Australia." I wonder what the Aussies have to say about this. How about a comment there, Steve Irwin? Too busy with that crockie? No worries.

"My dad put his robot penis in my mom's shark vagina!"

Forget your namby pamby laser-free sharks.

You want one of these!

http://www.innespace.com/ [innespace.com]

sweeeeeeet.

Yes, but does it come with a freakin' laserbeam mounted on its head?

"It's extremely innovative" said Cousteau. "It's a 1,200-pound tool that looks, feels and moves like a great white shark."

1,200 pounds is pretty big no matter how you look at it. And on top of that it moves with no engine noise or bubbles. It pushes through a 120-cubic-foot cylinder to move.
This definatly sounds like an improvement from the robotic shark used in the Jaws movies. I hate to be the one stuck filming with the thing if it malfunctions.

However, if the sub goes kablooey, Cousteau can eject through an escape hatch in the shark's head.

Only to be eaten by a hungry Great White.*

*One would be suprised how the Great White is really looked at competely the wrong way. The reason for the wrap of the bad name (besides Jaws) is the problem with their way of satisfying their curiousity. As humans have a habit of touching things they are curious about with their fingers sharks satisfy it by biting. Their bite is meant only as a touch but with thousands of razor sharp teeth it can also be deadly. I've seen divers who swim with full size (17 feet) Great Whites without a cage and escape harmless.

Crunchy on the outside, humanie on the inside!

Cousteau's grandson was eaten. The suits manufacturer says that the wearing of the suit and being ingested by another animal is purely conicidental.

Man goes into cage, cage goes into salsa, shark's in the salsa, robo shark.

I think Tintin [wikipedia.org] jokes would be more worthwhile. Red Rackham's Treasure here we come!

...not likely to slow down much either.

http://www.apple.com/pro/video/cousteau/ [apple.com]

Wow, that was a bad subject. But it's not a joke [apple.com]. Apple has more material on their site than Cousteau [fabiencousteau.com] does on his.

Looks like shark, tastes like people.

Welcome to 2004 [deeperblue.net].

Spielberg could have saved himself a lot of money filming "Jaws" if this thing had existed then and been at all realistic. I'll bet Grade B movie producers are scrambling over themselves to offer to rent this thing. Of course CGI has made this kind of actual model filming largely unneeded, but probably for a few more years people might like a physically based special effect if the price is right.

Of course Cousteau (Jacques's son Fabian) is himself using the beast for filming -- so not so pure research after all.

This is a great idea that should be generalized to allow humans to more easily observe nature (both in and out of the water) without the interference of cameras and trucks/boats etc.

Although I have not seen it I have heard that such a stunt was portrayed in some Jim Carey Pet Detective movie to the delight of potty humorists everywhere (I look forward to seeing it myself some day :).

It would also be a riot if other alien species do this type of thing to observe humans. Bump into someone on the street and a camera falls out of their mouth and all kinds of alien cursing starts coming from within the guy's body.

"...Cousteau referred to the shark kind of like a 'retarded cousin from Australia.'"

Wouldn't that make it a not-so-great white shark?

Fabien Cousteau: "I took nature's most perfect killing machine, and needlessly turned it into a robot!"

From TFA:

Since Troy cannot respond in a sophisticated, sharklike manner, Cousteau decided that while the great whites do buy that he's a shark, they consider him more like a "retarded cousin from Australia."

The third camera records Cousteau's behavior inside the sub.

Is this one there so they can make a documentary about marine biologists at the same time as they make the one about the sharks?

Take dolphins for example. I just gegoogelt and found that white shark prey on dolphins, so it seems reasonable that dolphins would use their echolocation to sense the presence of "shark". I wonder what this faux shark would sonar like.
(hopefully not chicken! :P )

AFAIK sharks (like sting rays) are extremely sensitive to electric fields. They are so sensitive in fact that there were some shark repellant devices a few years back that basically just periodically zapped the water at a voltage level that wasn't noticed by people but scared off sharks. How then, can this mechanical device with electronic cameras in it fool a shark into acting naturally when its giving off a strange electric field signature?

A submarine that looks like a Great White Shark?
Why does this sound so familiar [tellusfilm.com]to me?
I guess it's true that great minds think alike.

...RoboTuna! [mit.edu]

Until your robo-shark, with you in it, gets eaten by a passing Orca.