We've reported on such matter before, but once again a US Military drone (robot) has successfully fired on and killed at least 5 militants (terrorists) on the Pakistani border. It's great to hear that the "bad guys" are getting the due, and that US soldiers are being kept from harm by our roboti…
A couple interesting submarine launched UAVs, one by Raytheon and another, VOLANS, built by a German company, are featured in this Register article. The Submarine Over the Horizon Organic Capabilities, or SOTHOC, built by Raytheon, is launched out of the waste disposal lock of a sub…
The US Army has decided to move it's Robotics Systems Joint Project Office to Warren, MI, outside of Detroit. In response to this, many large robotics companies are following suit and opening offices in the area. The office is currently hiring engineers and designers to create robots to do “d
 In what is pretty stunning news to me, iRobot has purchased Nekton Research for $10 million USD. The reason this is so stunning, is because Nekton is 30min down the road from me, and I've interviewed there! Nekton is a small business located in Durham North Carolina and specializes in unde
The Mars Phoenix Lander is dying dead (see below). Dying a slow death of hypothermia. You see, the fading Martian summer sunlight is causing Phoenix to become starved for photons with which it charges its batteries. Without a fresh battery charge each day, Phoenix is unable to keep its heaters r…
Chris Anderson, over at DIY Drones, recently posted a full page advertisement, from the July edition of the AUVSI magazine, for AUS International’s AirSniper product. The AirSniper is described as, “a VTOL combat mini UAV intended for close infantry support.†Or, in other word
Congradulations to the Phoenix Mars Mission team! Phoenix touched down and has sent the first pictures back to Earth. Once again, NASA has accomplished an amazing feat. Now begins Phoenix's three month mission.
The Phoenix Mars Mission is scheduled to touch down on Mars today, May 25th, at around 9PM EST. Keep track of the progress on the mission's website. We'll keep you updated with details. Update: You can watch live coverage of the landing on NASA TV. Mission briefing starts at 3PM EST, and lan…
You may remember our posts on the sad plight of iRobot, who had accused their ex-employee, Jameel Ahed, of stealing their design, only to have the US Military award a whopping $280 million dollar contract to said ex-employee, and rejecting iRobot. Oh the injustice! Weep no more, fellow shareh…
The US Department of Defense (DoD) has released a report detailing the future of robotic military equipment and how the US military should proceed. The 188 page report (pdf) covers the next 25 years of unmanned military systems in the air, and sea, and on land. “The publication of this mos…
The world for terrorists and evil-doers just keeps getting scaier and scaier. First it was Predator drones with helfire missiles , then it was PackBots that can fire at 1,000,000 rounds/minute (more on this later), and now it's tiny flying vehicles with on-board cameras. Oh, did I mention they're t…
In what was a stunning blow to iRobot and its investors, the US Army rejected the company in a high-stakes big for a large order of bomb-detection and tactical robots (Forbes story here). iRobot, the favorite to win the bidding, offered its PackBot robots as the product of choice to meet the de…
Have you ever wanted to plumb the depths of your neighbors pond or swimming pool looking for lost treasure - cell phones, watches, ... ? Well, thanks to the smart kids over at Carl Hayden High School (also check out their blog) you can now buy a ROV-in-a-Box Project Kit for a mere $250 USD.…
Scientists from the Shiga University of Medical Science and Ritsumeikan University in Japan, have created yet another miniature robot to explore around the inside of your bod y. The robot, which is less than 1" x 0.5" is inserted through an incision and is moved by controlling a magnet…
This is an update to our previous post about this miniscule but amazing 'hand' from UCLA . The hand, which measures 1mm across when closed, is powered by gas pressure, and is hoped to be one day used in micro surgery. Balloons at the finger joints inflate to close the hand.You can also …
The secretive French robotics company, Aldebaran Robotics , has released a sneek-peek of its secretive robotic project, Nao . There a a few videos of the robot partially revealing itself. We get a glimps of it's hand waving, what appears to be its feet, and some facial recognition. The 14 person …
