In early 2009, news broke that an experimental Toshiba robot that had been programmed to love was malfunctioning. The story, paired with the above image of a half-Frankenstein, half-Asimo automaton running amok with a captive damsel-in-distress, graced some of the internets most-read tech blogs and news sites. Gizmodo, IGN, the Next Web, and others all ran stories about Kenji, the robot-turned-stalker that refused to stop hugging a terrified female intern. It was a slightly chilling and totally titillating narrative, and it played directly into our science fiction-fed imaginationsthe ones still avidly populated by increasingly sentient and sure-to-short-circuit robots. It was also a complete hoax. Yet the robo tall tale continues to quietly circulate around the web four years later, masquerading as blogged truth. This April Fools Day, when all of our feeds are brimming with gags, fictions, and jokey might-as-well-be-truths, its worth taking a look at how a minor, haphazard hoax has grown a rather long tail. Word that Kenji the love-struck robot was still lurking around online was delivered directly to my inbox. I have a Google Alert set for robots, as Id like to receive any news of the forthcoming robot apocalypse as promptly as possible. Typically, the stuff Google sends me are the ordinary robotics stories of the day: Stories about scientists newly invented robots, about robots that assist in new medical procedures, about advances in military robotics, about robots that are taking peoples jobs. But amongst the usual suspects was an item about a machine built to love. Honestly, it didnt stand out too much as overly preposterous, given the sensationalist leanings of blog headlineseven though it was titled Robot Programmed to Fall in Love with a Girl Goes Too Far . The tab was open on my browser for a couple days before I got around to reading it, and it was clear within sentences that it was pure fiction: Researchers at Toshibas Akimu Robotic Research Institute were thrilled ten months ago when they successfully programmed Kenji, a third generation humanoid robot, to convincingly emulate certain human emotions, it read. At the time, they even claimed that Kenji was capable of the robot equivalent of love. Now, however, they fear that his programming has taken an extreme turn for the worst.