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China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) which used to be in favor of human wave tactics has revealed its growing interest in military robot systems such as the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) mounted on trucks that appeared for the first time on National Day parade. A total of ten short and mid-range UAVs, obviously driven by a two-bladed propeller at the top or end of the fuselages, are painted with blue and red strips on the fuselage and wings.

Windows works for me. But I'd never recommend it to anybody else, ever.I admit it: I'm a bigot. A hopeless bigot at that: I know my particular prejudice is absurd, but I just can't control it. It's Apple. I don't like Apple products. And the better-designed and more ubiquitous they become, the more I dislike them. I blame the customers. Awful people. Awful. Stop showing me your iPhone. Stop stroking your Macbook. Stop telling me to get one. Seriously, stop it. I don't care if Mac stuff is better. I don't care if Mac stuff is cool. I don't care...

Lately I have been looking at the moon and wondering if it will someday kill me. If I live another 50 years (which is entirely possible) I assume I will eventually be a robot, having shed my old skin and bones body and uploaded a scanned and digitized version of my brain to a machine. My fellow robots and I will live among the meat people for eons until the moon's orbit degrades, either gradually or because a meteor gives it a nudge, and Earth is annihilated in the collision. You might say I worry too much. But I've successfully...

Soldiers these days have a lot of experience playing video games when they're growing up, and they're really familiar with these controls.

One of the most captivating storylines in science fiction involves a nightmarish vision of the future in which autonomous killer robots turn on their creators and threaten the extinction of the human race. Hollywood blockbusters such as Terminator and The Matrix are versions of this cautionary tale, as was R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), the 1920 Czech play by Karel Capek that marked the first use of the word "robot."

John Scalzi's Guide to the Most Epic FAILs in Star Wars Design I'll come right out and say it: Star Wars has a badly-designed universe; so poorly-designed, in fact, that one can say that a significant goal of all those Star Wars novels is to rationalize and mitigate the bad design choices of the movies. Need examples? Here's ten. R2-D2 Sure, he's cute, but the flaws in his design are obvious the first time he approaches anything but the shallowest of stairs. Also: He has jets, a periscope, a taser and oil canisters to make enforcer droids fall about in...

With the development of killer drones, it seems like everyone is worrying about killer robots. Now, as if that wasn't bad enough, we need to start worrying about lying, cheating robots as well. In an experiment run at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne, France, robots that were designed to cooperate in searching out a beneficial resource and avoiding a poisonous one learned to lie to each other in an attempt to hoard the resource. Picture a robo-Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

A Swedish company has been fined 25,000 kronor ($3,000) after a malfunctioning robot attacked and almost killed one of its workers at a factory north of Stockholm. Public prosecutor Leif Johansson mulled pressing charges against the firm but eventually opted to settle for a fine. "I've never heard of a robot attacking somebody like this," he told news agency TT. The incident took place in June 2007 at a factory in Bålsta, north of Stockholm, when the industrial worker was trying to carry out maintenance on a defective machine generally used to lift heavy rocks. Thinking he had cut off...

Robots are the most efficient workers in the world. Moreover, they do not complain about hours worked, ask for raises, or seek collective bargaining agreements. Nonetheless, In Japan, Machines for Work and Play Are Idle . Japan’s legions of robots, the world’s largest fleet of mechanized workers, are being idled as the country suffers its deepest recession in more than a generation as consumers worldwide cut spending on cars and gadgets. At a large Yaskawa Electric factory on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, where robots once churned out more robots, a lone robotic worker with steely arms twisted and...

TOKYO — Toyota Motor Corp. says it has developed a way of steering a wheelchair by just detecting brain waves, without the person having to move a muscle or shout a command. Toyota's system, developed in a collaboration with researchers in Japan, is among the fastest in the world in analyzing brain waves, it said in a release Monday. Past systems required several seconds to read brain waves, but the new technology requires only 125 milliseconds — or 125 thousandths of a second.

]-->Staff Sgt. Joseph Ray (center) watches as Iraqi National Police officers operate the Talon robot during training at the 225th Engineer Brigade's Task Force Iron Claw Academy on Camp Liberty, June 24. Photo by Lt. Col. Pat Simon, 225th Engineer Brigade. BAGHDAD — Playing with video game remote controls that power motorized robots may seem like a fun way to start the day. For ten Iraqi National Police (NP) officers, this arcade experience is a critical part of training at a new engineer training academy here on Camp Liberty. Members of the Iraqi 1st Mechanized Brigade, 2nd NP, wrapped up...

In a development that realizes a scenario out of a science fiction movie, scientists have developed technology enabling a robot to be controlled by thought power. A user wears a helmet that detects changes in blood flow and brain waves in different parts of his or her brain and converts them into radio signals that are transmitted to the bipedal humanoid robot, operating its limbs and making it speak.

Telegraph: She can speak different languages, carry out roll calls, set tasks and make facial expressions – including anger – thanks to 18 motors hidden behind her latex face.

"Action packed! These little robots have some fast moves, battling it out for fame and glory. Funny stuff." I can't figure out if this is the coolest robot duel ever -or just a group of drunken unemployed Japanese techies having a good time? Enjoy!

From the Times of London: "Autonomous military robots that will fight future wars must be programmed to live by a strict warrior code, or the world risks untold atrocities at their steely hands. The stark warning — which includes discussion of a "Terminator"-style scenario in which robots turn on their human masters — is part of a hefty report funded by and prepared for the U.S. Navy's high-tech and secretive Office of Naval Research. The report, the first serious work of its kind on military robot ethics, envisages a fast-approaching era where robots are smart enough to make battlefield decisions...

It’s all very Back To The Future-y, but engine maker Cyclone Power and Robotic Technologies have teamed up to build a robot called EATR, which stands for Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot. When they say “energetically autonomous,” it means that EATR will be able to locate and process available biomass (plants, animals, people) into energy using its own onboard bioreactor.

In less than a years time you will be able to have one of these amazing mowers on your golf course. This ground breaking technology four years in the making, will no doubt create a stir when they are unleashed at the Golf Industry Show in New Orleans this February. Before that happens Pitchcare Oceania gets the inside scoop with Precise Path's Brian Wheat, VP sales and marketing. Precise Path recise PThe Precise Path RG3ath designed the RG3 with input from experts and superintendents in the golf course and turf industry, including Dan Gamble, an inventor, former superintendent and turf...

ROBOTS will be armies of the future in a case of science fact catching up to fiction, a researcher said today. Peter Singer, who has authored books on the military, warned that while using robots for battle saves the lives of military personnel, the move has the potential to exacerbate warfare by having heartless machines do the dirty work. "We are at a point of revolution in war, like the invention of the atomic bomb," Mr Singer said. "What does it mean to go to war with US soldiers whose hardware is made in China and whose software is made...

Carrying heavy combat loads is taking a quiet but serious toll on troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, contributing to injuries that are sidelining them in growing numbers, according to senior military and defense officials. Rising concern over the muscle and bone injuries -- as well as the hindrance caused by the cumbersome gear as troops maneuver in Afghanistan's mountains -- prompted Army and Marine Corps leaders and commanders to launch initiatives last month that will introduce lighter equipment for some U.S. troops. As the military prepares to significantly increase the number of troops in Afghanistan -- including sending as...

MIT sending smart robots into war zones to save lives By Sharon Gaudin , Computerworld , 01/14/2009 Researchers at the Massachsetts institute of Technology are testing a robotic forklift prototype they hope can one day unload and move military supplies in a war zone keeping soldiers out of harm's way. MIT scientists used robotics and artificial intelligence technology to create a prototype of what they're calling a semi-autonomous forklift. The machine, which can lift and move pallets loaded with tires, water containers or construction supplies, uses situational awareness software. That technology enables the forklift to use sensing, inference and memory...

An Iraqi Army engineer navigates a Talon robot through a makeshift improvised explosive device training course at Combat Outpost Al Kindi, Mosul, Iraq, Dec. 30, 2008. Photo by Pfc. Adam Blazak, 11th Public Affairs Detachment. MOSUL — Various explosives are used by the enemy to disrupt or destroy the significant security gains made here by Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces. Coming across an IED isn’t a rarity here, and defeating these weapons is no easy task.  However, significant strides are being made.Simply put, “It’s intense every time,� said Loveland, Colo. native, Staff Sgt. Jeron Pilger, training cadre, 59th Mobility Augmentation...

Top robotics expert Professor Noel Sharkey, of the University of Sheffield, has called for international guidelines to be set for the ethical and safe application of robots before it is too late. Professor Sharkey, writing in the prestigious Science journal, believes that as the use of robots increases, decisions about their application will be left to the military, industry and busy parents instead of international legislative bodies.

Gothenburg - Institute of Robotics in Scandinavia (iRobis) has announced that the world’s first “complete cognitive software system for robotics” is ready for application. The system turns robots into self-developing, adaptive, problem-solving, “thinking” machines. http://mensnewsdaily.com/2007/05/16/robobusiness-robots-with-imagination/ Brainstorm automatically adapts to onboard sensors and actuators, immediately builds a model of any robot on which it is installed, and automatically writes control programs for the robot’s movements. It can then explore and model its environment. Through simulated interaction using these models, it solves problems and develops new behavior using “imagination.” Once it has “learned” to do something, it can use its imagination...

JERUSALEM - Israeli defense officials say the military has deployed remote-control machine guns along its border with the Gaza Strip. The system allows female soldiers watching television screens in control rooms in the rear to spot targets and open fire. In the past, lookouts had to call in ground forces to intercept militants.

A new robot developed by the University of Tokyo and Toyota Motor Corp., able to collect the washing and move furniture for cleaning, is being touted as the first step towards a robotic domestic helper. Robots have traditionally been bad at handling anything other than solid objects, but the robot named, "AR," is able to recognize clothes by their creases and actually pick them up, repeating the action should it drop them.

TOKYO — Imagine a bicycle seat connected by mechanical frames to a pair of shoes for an idea of how the new wearable assisted-walking gadget from Honda works. The experimental device, unveiled Friday, is designed to support bodyweight, reduce stress on the knees and help people get up steps and stay in crouching positions.

Texan researchers are mimicking the physical and biological characteristics of a pterosaur to create a 'pterodrone' - an unmanned aerial vehicle that flies, walks and sails like the original. "The next generation of airborne drones won't just be small and silent," said Texas Tech University, "they'll alter their wing shapes using morphing techniques to squeeze through confined spaces, dive between buildings, zoom under overpasses, land on apartment balconies, or sail along the coastline." The research team consists of palaeontologist Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech, University of Florida aeronautical engineer Rick Lind, and their students Andy Gedeon and Brian Roberts. The...

The latest request from the Pentagon jars the senses. At least, it did mine. They are looking for contractors to provide a "Multi-Robot Pursuit System" that will let packs of robots "search for and detect a non-cooperative human". One thing that really bugs defence chiefs is having their troops diverted from other duties to control robots. So having a pack of them controlled by one person makes logistical sense. But I'm concerned about where this technology will end up. Given that iRobot last year struck a deal with Taser International to mount stun weapons on its military robots, how long...

June 19, 2008 -- IRobot, best known for their cute Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, has teamed up with Metal Storm, purveyors of the million-rounds-per-minute electric gun, to create a slick, Terminator-like war robot for the U.S. military. The as yet unnamed war bot is being marketed for "border patrol" and "crowd control" scenarios, although other military situations are also under consideration. "We want our soldiers to have the option of controlling a robot that could go ahead and investigate, engage or deter an enemy and not put human soldiers at risk," said a spokesman for Metal Storm who wished to...

The US army is poised to unleash the dogs of war – four-legged, petrol-powered robots to help its troops in battle. Billed as ‘the most advanced quadruped robot on Earth’, BigDog has been devised to support American troops by carrying up to four packs of equipment on awkward terrain unsuitable for wheeled vehicles. Standing at over 2ft tall and more than 3ft long, BigDog comes equipped with all manner of high-tech gadgets, including laser gyroscopes, a video camera sensor system and a sophisticated on-board computer – but, sadly, no wagging tail. The 11 stone machine, created by Boston Dynamics, can...

U.S. researchers said they've created microscopic robots that can dance on a surface smaller than a pin head. Computer scientist Bruce Donald of Duke University said the microelectromechanical system (MEMS) microrobots are almost 100 times smaller than any previous robotic designs of their kind, the university said in a release. Videos produced by Donald's research team show two microrobots dancing to a Strauss waltz on a dance floor just 1 millimeter across. "Our work constitutes the first implementation of an untethered, multi-microrobotic system," Donald's team said in a report presented during the Hilton Head Workshop on Solid State Sensors, Actuators...

Taking its inspiration from the grasshopper, a tiny two-legged robot that stores elastic energy in springs has leaped 27 times its own height, smashing the record of 17 times set by a previous robot. Its creators hope that swarms of such hopping robots could spread out to explore disaster areas, or even the surfaces of other planets. The robot is only 5 centimetres tall, and weighs just 7 grams. A motor designed to power the vibration unit of a pager drives a system of gears that gradually wind two metal springs (see image, right).

WHAT do you call a surgeon who operates without scalpels, stitching tools or a powerful headlamp to light the patient’s insides? A better doctor, according to a growing number of surgeons who prefer to hand over much of the blood-and-guts portion of their work to medical robots controlled from computer consoles. Many urologists performing prostate surgery view the precise, tremor-free movements of a robot as the best way to spare nerves crucial to bladder control and sexual potency. A robot’s ability to deftly handle small tools may lead to a less invasive procedure and faster recovery for a patient. Robots...

CHICAGO, April 26 (UPI) -- U.S. hospitals are starting to use pharmacy robots designed to eliminate life-threatening medication errors, Loyola University Hospital says. The Chicago hospital said it is the first in the Midwest to use the PillPick, a two-armed robot that places single doses of medication in small plastic bags marked with a bar code to identify the drug. A nurse can scan the bar code on the medication bag along with the bar code on the patient's wrist band. The computer will sound an alert and an pop-up warning will appear if it is the wrong drug or...

A humanoid robot will conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra next month, mixing two different cultures -- technology and music. Honda Motor Co.'s Asimo robot was built to help people and to someday assist the elderly and disabled in their homes. While many features are still in development, Asimo has already become something of a robotic ambassador.

PITTSBURGH — We already knew that iRobot CEO Colin Angle was running the only successful business in the home robotics game, so it was fitting that he closed his keynote at the RoboBusiness Conference here today by asking if there’s really a robot industry in the first place: “Are we sure we’re not just an adjunct to another industry?” After all, Disney stopped buying its animatronic actors years ago, and started building them. What’s to stop retail chains from adding a robotics division, or an upright vacuum-maker from hiring its own team of roboticists? This is not, we can assume,...

A £4.6 million project to create swarms of hundreds of autonomous, Transformer-style robots has been launched. Scientists aim to create a prototype team of self-organising, shape-changing mini robots that work as a team by 2013. The self-healing robots will be able to dock with each other, share energy and co-operate to maximise their abilities to achieve different tasks. Researchers from 10 universities who are collaborating in the European Union-funded Symbrion programme say future applications include search and rescue missions, space exploration and medicine. Prof Alan Winfield, of the University of the West of England, Bristol, said: "A swarm could be...

The Israel Defense Forces are set to introduce an unmanned jeep into the ongoing conflict with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. While pilotless drones are already common in the Israel Air Force, this is the first time a driverless jeep will be used by the army's ground forces.

Far Ahead of Other Countries, Japan Experiments With Robots As Part of Daily Life TOKYO (AP) -- At a university lab in a Tokyo suburb, engineering students are wiring a rubbery robot face to simulate six basic expressions: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise and disgust. Hooked up to a database of words clustered by association, the robot -- dubbed Kansei, or "sensibility" -- responds to the word "war" by quivering in what looks like disgust and fear. It hears "love," and its pink lips smile.

LONDON (Reuters) - Killer robots could become the weapon of choice for militants, a British expert said on Wednesday. Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield said he believed falling costs would soon make robots a realistic option for extremist groups.

When you ask a man on the street where revolutionary advanced robots are being developed, he is likely to name Japan and the United States. Japan is well known for such amazing mechanical creations as ASIMO and HRP, as well as robots that dance, engage in martial arts, transform, and play musical instruments. In the United States, the success of iRobot in both military and consumer markets is legendary. The DARPA Grand Challenge demonstrated advanced work on autonomous vehicles. GM has its own autonomous vehicle and expects driverless cars to be on the roads in a few years. (Lexus...

Devices made of heart tissue could screen drug candidates and be used to power implantable robots. In a fourth-floor lab at Harvard University, Adam Feinberg is peering through a low-magnification microscope and using a scalpel to cut out triangles and rectangles from a thin polymer. What's impossible to see with the naked eye is a one-cell-thick layer of heart tissue coating each shape. When Feinberg connects the petri dish holding the triangles and rectangles to a pacemaker, the tissue begins to rhythmically contract, and the shapes come alive--twisting, pinching, and even swimming through a solution. The pieces of "muscular thin...

Scientists Invent Robots That Lie, Real Bender Closer Than Ever Holy crap! The Age of The Machines is nigh: a bunch of scientists in Switzerland have created learning robots that can lie to each other. Okay, so they don't swill beer or put bends in girders—they just communicate to each other with benign flashing lights, thank goodness, instead of using lasers to destroy humans: The team at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Federal Institute of Technology created the little experimental learning devices to work in groups and hunt for "food" targets nearby while avoiding "poison." Imagine their surprise...

Japanese Robot Eats Snow, Poops Out Bricks of Ice Wednesday, January 02, 2008 What's cute, yellow, eats snow and poops out bricks of ice? Meet Yuki-taro, a Japanese robot built to quickly clear roads after heavy snows. The cute little guy, about 5 feet long and 2 and a half feet high, simply plows into snowbanks, taking in the white stuff, compressing it and neatly stacking it in two-foot-long bricks on his rear bed. Created by a consortium of private companies, municipal governments and university researchers, Yuki-taro is equipped with two video cameras in his "eyes" as well as a...

Do robots deserve rights? The question is less ridiculous than it sounds. As scientists develop ever more sophisticated robots, we are faced with an ethical dilemma: When does artificial intelligence demand humane treatment? In the last month, Japanese scientists have unveiled robots capable of serving food and even playing the violin and trumpet. These aren't self-aware robots – many scientists deride the notion of ever creating a robot capable of self-awareness – but self-awareness isn't the sole qualifier for rights. Certain severely brain-damaged human beings and newborns lack general self-awareness, but there is little doubt that they have rights, no...

TOKYO (AP) - As if the idea of having one robot to serve you wasn't unusual enough, Honda says its humanoids are now ready to work in pairs - and they can even serve drinks. At a demonstration Tuesday at its Tokyo headquarters, automaker Honda Motor Co. (HMC) showed off two of the child-sized Asimo robots serving tea and performing other tasks in coordination with one another. The bubble-headed robots seemed to pick their steps carefully as they made their way around the room, picking up and putting down drink trays and pushing around a refreshments cart. Honda said it...

Warning sounded over 'flirting robots' by Ina Fried Those entering online dating forums risk having more than their hearts stolen. A program that can mimic online flirtation and then extract personal information from its unsuspecting conversation partners is making the rounds in Russian chat forums, according to security software firm PC Tools. The artificial intelligence of CyberLover's automated chats is good enough that victims have a tough time distinguishing the "bot" from a real potential suitor, PC Tools said. The software can work quickly too, establishing up to 10 relationships in 30 minutes, PC Tools said. It compiles a report...

It may not look like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator character, but robots designed to tote automatic weapons could give a key advantage to American soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Soaring demand for a bomb disposal robot called Talon in Iraq has helped QinetiQ to post a strong rise in profits, despite a slowdown in overall defence spending by Britain. QinetiQ has sold more than 1,000 Talon robots, with about a third of those heading for Iraq and Afghanistan. Yesterday it announced that it had received more than $175 million (£84.5 million) of orders in the first half of the year....

The sniper nests and IED-laced roads of Iraq have posed deadly challenges for the U.S. military. The result has been speedy development of soldiers that know nothing about fear or danger: the combat robot. "It's a tremendous capability to put a robot where you do not want to put a man," said Jim Braden, of the Army's Joint Robotics Program. Never before have robots played such a wide role in a ground war, reports CBS News correspondent Russ Mitchell. Five thousand robots are working alongside U.S. forces, finding booby traps or searching for the enemy. "The real trend right now...

I can't say I'm much of a gardener. It's all a bit too much like hard work, especially wasting hot summer days mowing the lawn into neat little lines - I'd much rather get the deckchair out and crack open a can. And now I can - and get the lawn cut with the Automower from Husqvarna. It's a gardener's dream, cutting grass automatically without being pushed or guided - even if there's a tree or two to negotiate. Use the perimiter wire to cordon off flower beds, young trees, ponds and swimming pools and automower does the rest. As...