In This Week's News

A Japanese woman has finally married her robotic bear boyfriend. Xiao Lin , 29, had been dating the bear, Patrick, 4, for over three years and decided it was time to take the next step. 

Xiao is very candid about her past and what this relationship means to her, "In the past I would find a man and instinctively try to change his personality through nagging and reinforcement through sex. I decided that this is just the natural progression". 

Now when she wants to stop him from depositing his waste in the woods, or refilling with anchovy oil in bed, she just re-programs him. No nagging, no withholding sex like she would with a human. She just alters his CPU. Simple and effective.

Initially there was uproar in Japan, with many people condemning their relationship. One local saying, "A woman having sex with a robotic bear, what's next, me having sex with my toaster?", he went on to say, "Just to be clear, is it now okay for me to have sex with my toaster?". The change in attitude towards the couple stemmed from Kyoto Mayor, Jin Kazama, who declared their relationship legal, "Fuck it. If she wants to fuck a robot then that's up to her. I bet that robot is more affectionate than my whore wife".

Their wedding was a small affair, held in the groom's Toshiba factory, and with only the bride and groom's close family in attendance. The bride's brother, Xinxu, was in charge of taking photographs, he said "It was just a beautiful ceremony. Simple and elegant". The groom's cousin, a Toshiba digital camera, was clearly moved, "It was wonderful. I'll remember this day for the rest of my (battery) life, or until someone deletes the images".

When asked about their love life Xiao didn't want to give too much away, "Let's just say that I'm very happy", she went on to say, "His penis is detachable so that I can't take it on business trips. It's also dishwasher safe". A match manufactured in heaven.