Breaking: Giant, Terrifying Warrior-Bots ... On Sale Now! Oh, good.
Just in time for this evening's nightmares: A gigantic, incredibly powerful robot is finally available for purchase. While supplies last. iRobot's 710 Warrior, which rides on caterpillar tracks that are able to navigate rough terrain or even climb stairs, has been in the making for several years now. Preliminary versions of the mega-bot were even sent to the ravaged Fukushima power plant last year, where they helped explore potentially compromised buildings after Japan's natural disaster and subsequent nuclear accident.
And now, according to a report from Technology Review, the 710 Warrior is ready for mass production. Next stop, natural disasters? If the Warrior does pass military muster, it'll join plenty of iRobot comrades already in the ranks. Of course, the Warrior could be a major boon for soldiers in combat or civilians reeling from a natural disaster. Video: iRobot. Video: Army's Leaping 'Bots Grow Lizard Tails. The military's robot army continues to evolve by leaps and bounds.
Quite literally, now that some of the 'bots have grown tails. A research team at the University of California, Berkeley, funded in part by the Army Research Laboratory, have come up with a nifty new way to help robots stay upright and stable, even when making precarious hops and strides over difficult terrain. Inspired by the stabilizing powers that tails imbue in lizards (and, eons ago, dinosaurs) the group decided to add similar tails to their robots. The precise angle at which a lizard flexes its tail, in response to the surface off which it jumps and the angle of its body, helps that lizard maintain control, even in mid-air, and land upright. The idea is to do the same for mechanical monsters. "We showed for the first time that lizards swing their tail up or down to counteract the rotation of their body, keeping them stable," Dr. Not to mention far more freaky lookin' ones. Video: UC Berkeley. Breaking: Giant, Terrifying Warrior-Bots ... On Sale Now!
Breaking: Giant, Terrifying Warrior-Bots ... On Sale Now! Humans Lose, Robots Win in New Defense Budget. Some other programs get expanded, too.
For 20 years, Navy's studied creating non-aircraft-carrier bases at sea, to put in places where the U.S. can't have land bases, to launch small jump jets like the F/A-18 Hornet, helicopters or drones. Now the Pentagon will fund "development of a new afloat forward staging base," according to budget documents, although it's not specifying what how large those ships will be or how much they'll cost. It's also a great time to be a snake-eater. Pentagon budget documents describe Special Operations Forces as "critical to U.S. and partner counter terrorism operations and a variety of other contemporary contingencies. " In other words, whereas the military invaded and occupied trouble spots during the 2000s, it'll send commandos for discrete missions in the 2010s. Even the most expensive defense program in history, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet family, is getting a mere haircut.
That won't go over well with the flyboys. Cyborg technology with implanted human brain predicted this year. Famed British scientist Kevin Warwick thinks “being linked to another person’s nervous system opens up a whole world of possibilities.
" For instance, he points to “thought communication instead of cell phones.” In turn, Warwick stated in in the January edition of “W” (a monthly fashion magazine at wmagazine.com) that he’s about to unveil this “cyborg” technology soon with his “most advanced specimen to date: a cyborg robot that will be operated by an implanted human brain grown from neurons.” A “cyborg” is the nickname for a “cybernetic organism” – that’s both biological and artificial, with electronic and mechanical robotic parts. What is special about human cognition that machines (A.I.) will never be able to replicate? : philosophy.