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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...

Robots versus pirates—it’s not as stupid, or unlikely, as it sounds. Piracy has exploded in the waters near Somalia, where this past week United States warships have fired on two pirate skiffs, and are currently in pursuit of a hijacked Japanese-owned vessel. At least four other ships in the region remain under pirate control, and the problem appears to be going global: The International Maritime Bureau is tracking a 14-percent increase in worldwide pirate attacks this year. < >For years now, law enforcement agencies across the high seas have proposed robotic boats, or unmanned surface vessels (USVs), as a...

Humans could marry robots within the century. And consummate those vows. "My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots," artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told LiveScience. Levy recently completed his Ph.D. work on the subject of human-robot relationships, covering many of the privileges and practices that generally come with marriage as well as outside of it. At first, sex with robots might be considered geeky, "but once you have a story like 'I had sex with a robot, and it...

MAASTRICHT, Netherlands, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- The University of Maastricht in the Netherlands is awarding a doctorate to a researcher who wrote a paper on marriages between humans and robots. David Levy, a British artificial intelligence researcher at the college, wrote in his thesis, "Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners," that trends in robotics and shifting attitudes on marriage are likely to result in sophisticated robots that will eventually be seen as suitable marriage partners. Levy's conclusion was based on about 450 publications in the fields of psychology, sexology, sociology, robotics, materials science, artificial intelligence, gender studies and computer-human interaction. The...

WASHINGTON — Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an anti-war rally in Lafayette Square last month. "I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up, and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects." Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too. "I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' " That...

Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month. "I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."

Robot warriors have already seen action in Iraq, and the US Army plans to replace one-third of its armored vehicles and weapons with robots by 2015. These killing machines may one day come equipped with an artificial conscience -- even to the extent of disobeying immoral orders. The US Army's latest recruits are 1 meter (about 3 feet) tall, wear desert camouflage and are armed with black M249 machine guns. They also move on caterpillar tracks and -- thanks to five camera eyes -- can even see in the dark. The fearless fighters are three robot soldiers who, unnoticed by...

South Korea, at the forefront of the drive to develop robots which can do anything from guarding the border to caring for the elderly, is now drawing up a code of ethics for them. The nation, which has set an ambitious goal of a robot in every home by 2013, has launched a project to write what it believes will be the world's first Robot Ethics Charter. It will be released by year's end. "We are setting rules on how far robotic technology can go and how humans live together with robots," said Kim Dae-Won, a professor at Myongji University...

FOB KALSU — They are small and lightweight, yet their tiny bodies can carry a great burden. The PackBot and Talon robots, industrial robots designed by the iRobot Co., are tactical mobile robots used by the military for search, reconnaissance and bomb-disposal missions. "Robots give us the ability to do procedures on improvised explosive devices without risking Soldiers," said.1st Sgt Dean Smith, 705th Ordnance Company, Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit. "They are tools we use to save lives – ours and others." While the robots on today's battlefield might be a long way from the Terminator, RoboCop or C3PO of science...

FLAGSTAFF — The University of Arizona and the state's space prowess, both in astronomy and in NASA's manned and robotic missions, began in the high pines above this mountain town 113 years ago. In 1894, wealthy citizen scientist Percival Lowell sent his man Andrew Ellicott Douglass west from Boston to scope out the best Arizona site for an astronomical observatory. Douglass traversed the state by train and horse-drawn wagon, dragging a pair of coffin-sized crates holding Lowell's telescope to high spots in Tempe (that rock pile behind Arizona State University's stadium), Tucson ("A" Mountain) and Tombstone (site unknown). He ultimately...

I was introduced to my first sociable robot on a sunny afternoon in June. The robot, developed by graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was named Mertz. It had camera sensors behind its eyes, which were programmed to detect faces; when it found mine, the robot was supposed to gaze at me directly to initiate a kind of conversation. But Mertz was on the fritz that day, and one of its designers, a dark-haired young woman named Lijin Aryananda, was trying to figure out what was wrong with it. Mertz was getting fidgety, Aryananda was getting frustrated and...

July 25, 2007 The 50 best movie robots To coincide with the release of Michael Bay's epic Transformers movie we rate the most celebrated 'artifical people' in movies Michael Moran We selected the fifty most memorable robots in film and rated them in four different categories: Plausibility (meaning how likely it would be that, with advances on currently existing technology, such a device could be built) Coolness (just how well designed, shiny or generally well-appointed the robot appeared to be) Dangerousness (scoring not only on built-in weaponry, but the robot's eagerness to use it) Comedy Value (how effective the robot...

When there’s no safe escape, call in the Mules: These unmanned aerial vehicles could save lives on the battlefield—and off U.S. troops are pinned down in a crowded city center. Several are wounded and need immediate evacuation. There are miles of labyrinthine roads and thousands of enemy gunmen between them and the nearest base. The threat from rocket-propelled grenades has grounded the big helicopters. There's one, final hope for these soldiers: the Mule, a compact, fully autonomous medevac aircraft powered by ducted fans—fully enclosed spinning blades that are smaller and more efficient than conventional helicopter rotors. This concept, created by...

Almost four decades after John Cleese performed his "silly walks" sketch on Monty Python's Flying Circus, mathematicians have concluded that they are, indeed, silly. Today, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical and Physical and Engineering Sciences, an analysis of walking and running concludes that they are the most efficient forms of two-legged locomotion "Our legs are capable of much more than just walking and running," said Manoj Srinivasan, one of the co-authors. "We prove that for a very simple mathematical model of a biped, walking and running minimise the amount of leg work required per distance at...

Robo-toilets proposed to stop 'gay' cruising Mayor: 'Homosexuals ... engaging in sex, anonymous sex, illegal sex' Posted: July 7, 2007 6:55 p.m. Eastern Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle says his city has a problem with "homosexual activity" in public restrooms and he has a plan to stop it – robotic toilets that allow occupants to stay inside for only a short time before the door automatically opens. "We're trying to provide a family environment where people can take their children who need to use the bathroom without having to worry about a couple of men in there engaged in a...

Soldiers may no longer have to call for a medic on the battlefield – thanks to a robot which can pick up the wounded and carry them to safety. The remote-controlled android, dubbed the Battlefield Extraction and Retrieval Robot (Bear), has a range of up to 50m. Defence experts say it is the most promising solution yet to the 'holy grail' of being able to send robots into war zones to rescue wounded. The US army is backing the project by handing designer Vecna Robotics funding for the robot – each one costs more than £50,000. The Bear could also...