An article appearing in November's issue of the IEEE Spectrum (a magazine written by and for electrical engineers), asks the question, "Why do toddlers love robots?". The answer, it seems, lies not in their cute and fuzzy appearance, but more in their ability to be unpredictable and resond to int…
What if mankind evacuated Earth and forgot to turn off the last remaining robot? This is the premise of Pixar Studio's latest film, Wall-E, to be relased this coming summer. Even though Lem beat me to it, I've been meaning to post about Wall-E ever since my wife and I saw the trailer in front …
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…
EngineeringTV, started in January 2007, is, "a unique online video program by engineers for engineers." Each week, EngineeringTV posts two new interviews and informative videos on relavant eneering subjects. Topics range from smart cars, robotics, wind turbines, to space missions. Each episode i…
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…
