Free Republic

The Z-Ro Retinal Obfuscation weapon mounted to a handgun. Last summer’s riots in Ferguson, Missouri, prompted much talk by President Obama and certain members of Congress about the need to demilitarize local police forces. Nearly a year later, the opposite is happening. New and more powerful weapons are flowing into local police departments daily, and still others are new to the marketplace. One weapon about to make its debut is the “Z-Ro Retinal Obfuscation” gun. When fired, the gun allows an officer to temporarily blind his targeted subject for up to 15 minutes. The new “compliance weapon” made a...

To keep track of increasingly stealthy Russian, Chinese, and Iranian submarines, the U.S. is building a robotic ghost ship - an unmanned, autonomous patrol ship - to follow them around the high seas.

Would you want your consciousness to live on, long after your physical body is exhausted? Or have a ‘mind clone’ sit in on meetings as you take the day off? Is that even possible? Meet Bina48, the robot who can tell jokes, recite poetry and mimic humans. One of the most sophisticated robots ever built, capable of independent thought, emotion, Bina48 is modelled on Bina Aspen, wife of Martine Rothblatt — the CEO of biotech outfit United Therapeutics. A vision of a future where we all have such “mind clones” is what futurist 60-year-old Rothblatt shared on March 15 with...

Some ethicists argue sexbots will improve our lives by ending prostitution and sex trafficking, and by fulfilling human needs. The Christian Post spoke with three Christians who have written on topics related sex and human relationships and technology to get their take on the issue. The technology required to make a sexbot, or a robot designed for sexual relations with a human, is quickly becoming available, and some companies are already working toward that goal. First, robotics companies are already working toward designing robots that can move like humans and respond to humans with facial expressions. Second, there are several...

When I think of any kind of liquid metal form changing shape and moving around on its own accord, I can’t help but conjure up images of the T-1000 robot assassin from the movie, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Now scientists have made a little drop of metal that’s able to propel itself through liquid and change shape to fit through a narrow passage. Although this little drop of liquid metal is no shapeshifting Nanomorph, it does have some fascinating properties that could one day be used to develop new methods for delivering drugs through blood vessels. To make the liquid...

The battling robots are back! Twelve years after BattleBots ended its run on Comedy Central, ABC has picked up a reimagined take of the killer robot combat sport, from Whalerock Industries and the creators of the original BattleBots franchise, Ed Roski and Greg Munson. Former ABC topper Lloyd Braun executive produces the project, which has received a six-episode order to air this summer.

The world’s first robotized sales assistants were rolled out last month in California. They are nifty, cute — and terrifying. Nicknamed OSHbots, the two machines cost $50,000 apiece, are five feet of plastic on wheels and carry built-in natural language processors, computers, product scanners and navigation tools. Named after the Orchard Supply Hardware store where they work in San Jose, they greet customers, ask if they need help, identify items, then offer to guide them to the appropriate aisle without bumping into anyone or anything. At night, they do inventory by cruising the store to identify missing products and update...

ATLAS Robot built by Boston Dyanmics- which Google recently bought Dubbed Ian, the Atlas robot is 6ft 2in tall and weighs in at 330lb The Atlas robot created by Google-owned firm Boston Dynamics is a formidable figure at 6ft 2in tall and weighing in at 330lb. The robot boasts 28 hydraulically actuated joints and stereo vision, and is one of the most advanced robots ever created.

'Masquerading refers to a person in a given context being unable to tell whether the machine is human', explain the researchers -- this is the very essence of the Turing Test. This type of deception increases "metaphysical entropy," meaning any corruption of entities and impoverishment of being; since this leads to a lack of good in the environment -- or infosphere -- it is regarded as the fundamental evil by Floridi. Following this premise, the team set out to ascertain where 'the locus of moral responsibility and moral accountability' lie in relationships with masquerading machines, and try to establish whether...

A small, hobby-sized robot could herald the pilot of the future. At just 39.7cm (15.6in) tall, PIBOT -- a portmanteau of "pilot" and "robot" and not to be confused with Raspberry Pi-powered PiBot or 3D printer PiBot -- has been trained by researchers at KAIST to fly a human-sized aeroplane. The robot, presented at IROS Chicago earlier this month, has a video camera built into its "face", with software built in for runway detection and other visual cues. The rest of the buttons, sticks and switches allow the robot to control throttle, braking pitch, yaw, altitude, velocity, and direction, information...

Was This The First Robot Ever Arrested? On August 18, 1982 the Beverly Hills Police Department took a rather unusual perp into custody: a robot called DC-2. The crime? Illegally distributing business cards and generally causing a commotion on North Beverly Drive. It was probably the first time a robot had ever been arrested. When BHPD approached DC-2, the person operating it via remote control refused to identify himself to police. Officers searched the immediate area, but whoever was behind the thing was nowhere to be found. The bot's mysterious operator wasn't afraid of a little joking around though, despite...

Behold! A robot that is so autonomous it can make itself is now a reality, thanks to Harvard and MIT, The Harvard Gazette reports. But what does that mean?Check out their video here: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO... Robert Wood, the Charles River Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard and member of the team that created the robot, said in an interview: “Well, robots in general are complex mechanisms: They have articulation, some number of degrees of freedom, they must interact with the world. So we picked a robot not just because we work on robotics,...

If you’re one of those people who doesn't like having your picture taken, here's some dubious advice courtesy of a great white shark: try to eat the camera. Discovery Channel's website recently featured a series of videos of sharks inspecting, intimidating, and even attacking an underwater vehicle that was filming the marine predators in their native habitat.

The National Science Foundation has committed $10 million to build robots that will act as “personal trainers” for children, in an effort to influence their behavior and eating habits. The NSF grant said the project is necessary due to “critical societal problems.”

Deciding to cancel a cable service subscription can be difficult -- breaking the news to the cable company can be near-impossible. Tech journalist Ryan Block and his wife Veronica Belmont tried to cancel their Comcast service last week over the phone. Block says 10 minutes into his frustrating conversation with the Comcast customer service representative, he started recording the phone call, which he posted on SoundCloud. The representative, whose name Block withheld, repeatedly demanded to know why Block would want to cancel the service. Block tells WTOP he and his wife told the representative they wanted to change providers, before...

A team of researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have created a new sprinting robot inspired by a velociraptor. The robot, dubbed the Raptor, runs on two legs, and is capable of running 46 kilometers per hour (kph), or 28 miles per hour (mph), on a treadmill, according to CNET. Raptor can run faster than Usain Bolt, Olympic sprinter and the fastest known human, who has a recorded top speed of 44.7kph (27.44 mph). The robot is almost as fast as Boston Dynamics' Cheetah, which can run at 47kph (29.3 mph). Both Raptor and Cheetah...

It’s Friday, do you know where your President is?He was last spotted in Japan where, I see, Drudge mocked him for bowing to a robot - butt you have to admit, the little guy was really good. The robot I mean:Besides, in Japan bowing is a way of life. Especially for tall people.And you know how BO likes to adapt to the local customs and culture; everywhere except America. So far Big Guy has been treated like royalty, first at the world famous “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” restaurant in the Tokyo where the starting price is an unbelievable $300 per...

.... President Barack Obama bowed, looking delighted. His greeter, after all, was a 55-inch-tall, give or take, humanoid robot with the look of a diminutive Star Wars storm trooper. “It’s nice to meet you, too,” Obama said, pausing to watch the robot, named ASIMO, perform during a tour of the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. Despite Obama’s background in constitutional law, there’s a presidential geek side that always seems charmed, if not bemused, by technological advances....

TOKYO (AP) — The voice was slightly halting, childlike. "Welcome to Miraikan, Mr. President, it is a pleasure to meet you." President Barack Obama bowed, looking delighted. His greeter, after all, was a 55-inch-tall, give or take, humanoid robot with the look of a diminutive Star Wars storm trooper. "It's nice to meet you, too," Obama said, pausing to watch the robot, named ASIMO, perform during a tour of the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. During his visit to Tokyo, President Obama had a chance to meet ASIMO, a Japanese humanoid robot. ASIMO, an acronym for Advanced Step...

SRI International is creating coordinated systems of tiny ant-like robots that can build larger structures. The aim is a swarm of magnetically-controlled bugbots that could construct electronic devices, conduct chemistry for lab-on-a-chip applications, or do other micro scale manufacturing. It's part of the US Department of Defense's "Open Manufacturing" program.