Nov 18 2009 Today Only: Zombie Vampire Robots Shirts
If you're not familiar with shirt.woot, congratulations, and welcome to the internet. There's lots of stuff in this series of tubes, including, and virtually limited to: misinformation and porn. Also, Geekologie and stuff for sale. And speaking of stuff for sale, $10 will get you this Zombie Vampire Robots from Space shirt (shipped!) TODAY ONLY. I could take this time to explain how shirt.woot and woot.com work and even brag about the number of bags of crap I've gotten (ZERO BABY, YEAH!) but I'm not going to. If you want the shirt, go buy it, if not, don't come crying to me tomorrow when you decide you want it after all and it's not for sale anymore. Because you know what you'll get? A cold shoulder penis Popsicle shoulder.
UPDATE: Sold out, sorry chumps. May appear again in the reckoning.
Shirt.woot (will be a different shirt tomorrow)
Thanks to Melissa, Julian, Aaron and Kiraly, who have gotten little to no work done during the current woot-off. Nice, guys, glad you don't work for me.
Nov 10 2009 Close Calls: Killer Robot Plane Goes Rogue, Is Shot Down Before It Can Turn On Its Master
An autonomous killer Reaper jet recently went rogue in Northern Afghanistan and had to be shot down before it got the chance to go berserk and blast the shit out of the blue team. Eff that!
The aircraft was flying a combat mission when positive control of the MQ-9 was lost. When the aircraft remained on a course that would depart Afghanistan's airspace, a US Air Force manned aircraft took proactive measures to down the Reaper in a remote area of northern Afghanistan.
It wasn't clear from the US military announcement whether the erratic death-bot had turned on its masters and was planning an attack on critical US logistics bases located north of the Afghan border, or whether it had sickened of reaping hapless fleshies like corn and was hoping merely to escape. Alternatively the machine assassin may merely have succumbed to boredom or - just possibly - a mundane, non-anthropomorphic technical fault of some kind.
Okay, I don't know exactly how this fits into my government/robot conspiracy, but I assure you it does. Importantly. Like the last piece in a very critical puzzle. Provided my dog didn't eat any pieces. Because then I'll have to cut a similar shape out of construction paper and color it with markers. AND IT WILL NEVER BE THE SAME. My parents will tell me you can barely tell the difference BUT YOU CAN TELL. You can tell.
Robot Fighter Jet Killed Before It Could Go AWOL [io9]
Thanks to AdmiralN00b, Shawn, Beanbones, Paul, Timothy, Anonymous, Sambob, That Guy and Jason, who are all welcome to stay in my anti-robot shelter, provided they shower. And spoon.
Oct 16 2009 Wicked Transformer Halloween Decorations
This is a video of some guy in Cleveland that made giant Bumblebee and Optimus Prime Halloween decorations. They are most impressive. Granted, some teenage jerks in the neighborhood are gonna wreck them, but they're still cool while they last. Not unlike snowmen. Which, funny story: last winter I saw one with a hotdog for a nose! I mean, who doesn't have carrots?!?! I suspect his eyes were dog turds.
Thanks to kat, Dave and Paul, who are all ready to transform and trick-or-treat the hell out.
Oct 14 2009 We're As Good As Dead: Robots Driving Tank
We can only pray this is an elaborate Photoshop hoax or we're all as good as dead. Well, you are, I'm as bad as dead. And twice as bad as that nancy Leroy Brown. That jive-talking mother ain't got nothin' on me!
Picture [pictureisunrelated]
Thanks to Daniel, who actually is meaner than a junkyard dog and once pushed an old lady into traffic.
Oct 14 2009 Pop It Like A Beach Ball!: Shape Shifting Bot
iRobot, a diabolical company best known for convincing millions of housewives to allow rug-munching robots into their homes, has now developed an air-filled shape-shifting robot that will climb into your bed and smother you while you sleep.
Unveiled at the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) yesterday, this palm-sized troublemaker is being billed as "the first demonstration of a completely soft, mobile robot using jamming as an enabling technology." The "jamming" in question is something called "jamming skin enabled locomotion," which traps air and a collection of loosely packed particles in a package made of silicon rubber. When air is removed from the pocket, the silicon restricts and seems to solidify. The robot consists of several of these pockets, which can be inflated or deflated separately, giving the device the ability to perform simple actions.
The first part of the video explains how the technology works, but the actual bot-test begins around 1:50. Sure, it may look like a harmless beach ball, but do you know how many people drown each year trying to retrieve beach balls that have been swept out to sea? Now multiply that by every single person on earth and you have an idea of this thing's killing potential.
iRobot shape-shifting ChemBot is back, and it's bad [engadget]
Thanks to JKirchartz, hayden, NF, Michael, Tuggis, matt and We'llmissyoujehudah, who vow to pop every last one of these things with fiery arrows. Good looking, guys, but you might wanna brush up on your archery.
Oct 4 2009 Don't Tell The Robots!: Blood Powered Lamp
Awesome, a lamp powered by human blood. Because this will end well.
What if, every time you wanted to switch on a light, you had to bleed? Would you think twice before illuminating the room, and in turn, using up energy?
That's the idea behind the blood lamp, invented by Mike Thomspon, an English designer based in The Netherlands. The lamp contains luminol - the same chemical forensic scientists use to check for traces of blood at a crime scence. Luminol reacts with the iron in red blood cells and creates a bright blue glow. To use the lamp, you first need to mix in an activating powder. Then, you break the glass, cut yourself, and drip blood into the opening.
And this, my friends, is how our robotic overlords will read their Kindles at night. And I'll be damned if I become some robot's lamp juice. You hear me?! You will never take my blood! Quick, Edward, bite me! DO IT NOW, NANCY! *swoon* God I love your hair.
Lamp Runs On Human Blood [livescience]
Thanks to Dustin, who has never kissed a vampire (he didn't like).
Sep 28 2009 Crazy: Lockheed Martin's Samurai Monocopter
Monocopters are single-bladed airfoils, best known for falling from maple trees as whirligigs. But this is a radio controlled version developed by Lockheed Martin that actually flies UP instead of only down. I predict robotic versions in the future with really, really sharp blades on them.
Eventually, the SAMARAI project was supposed to produce a nanomonocopter (?) about the same size as a seed pod (on the order of 1.5 inches long and 10 grams in weight), driven by a miniature rocket or jet thruster, able to send back streaming video (that was stabilized somehow), autonavigate, and deliver a 2 gram payload up to a kilometer away. The big version in the video above was a testbed to help engineers figure out just how to get this thing to fly in a stable and controllable manner.
Forget helicopters and monocopters, what ever happened to good old fashioned jetpacks? Because jetpacks, as my Magic 8-Ball just confirmed, are the wave of the future. Just saying, you ever made love to a girl wearing one? Don't do it from behind.
Lockheed Martin SAMARAI UAV Scares Me [botjunkie]
Sep 16 2009 Uh-Oh: Little Robot Can Jump 25-Foot Fences
Boston Dynamics, a company best known for heralding the apocalypse with their futuristic death machines, is at it again -- this time manufacturing the Precision Urban Hopper.
Most of the time, the shoebox-sized robot - which is being developed for the US military - uses its four wheels to get around.
But the Precision Urban Hopper can use a piston-actuated "leg" to launch it over obstacles such as walls or fences.The semi-autonomous, GPS-guided gadget could be used for surveillance in urban environments.
The robot is allegedly able to clear obstacles up to 25-feet high. Which is exactly why I built a 26-foot fence around my anti-robot compound. And dug a moat. Which, FYI, is filled with deadly water dragons. But not luck dragons -- Falcor doesn't like to get wet! But he does like to get high. You're so soft, Falcor. Plus you have a puppy face.
Military robot 'hops' over walls [bbcnews]
and
Youtube
Thanks to TobyRaider, Bobby, JKirchartz, Kelly, Lomig, Kyle, Laux, Jennaiii, shiny bathtub, shawn, Nikki, Fritz, Gonk Assassin, Mark, Spikey DaPikey, prestone, Matty, 2MechanicalArms and Laurent who can't even jump out of bed in the morning. It's called depression, folks, and I have it too.
Sep 15 2009 Are You Out Of Your Damn Mind? Alternatively: Oh Helllllllll No: A Needle Wielding, Blood Sucking Robot
Can you count the number of things wrong in the picture above? If you answered, "every single one", congratulations, you are correct. You see, Bloodbot is a robot designed to stab you with a needle. And I think we can all agree: that is exactly NOT what Jesus would do.
The robot consists of an arm with a needle and a probe. In order to find an accessible vein, the robot probes around your arm until it finds an area of flesh that is a little bit less squishy than the rest. Then it jabs you with a needle, and when it feels a little pop indicating that it's punched through into a vein, it knows to stop the jabbage, lest it go right through the other side of your vein, out the back of your arm, and into your femoral artery, causing a massive amount of hemorrhaging that will no doubt kill you in minutes.
So far, the robot is accurate about 78% of the time.
Hell no. Helllllllllll no. I don't care if it's accurate 110% of the time, no robot is getting anywhere near these precious, alcohol filled veins with a needle. I'd rather stab myself in the heart with a cannonball. And not just because I'm a pirate, but I do love booty. Seriously -- back that thang up, wench!
Bloodbot Stabs You Like A Pro [botjunkie]
Thanks to Spikey DaPikey and qix, who once stabbed a pair of robots in the eyes with syringes full of acid and made them melt from the inside out. Nice, guys, I like your style.
Sep 11 2009 Noooo!: Prego-Bot Gives Birth To Robo-Son
In one of the most f'ed up things I've seen in recent history, the University of Arizona Medical Center has a robotic woman that gives birth to a robotic son so that medical students can witness the horrors of robotic birth firsthand.
Named Noelle, she grunts, screams, yells at the doctors, pees, bleeds -- and yes, even gives birth (to a cute little robot baby named Hal).
Paid for with a $40,000 grant from Miami-based Guarnard Scientific, the university bought Noell, baby Hal, and another, smaller robot-baby in January. Then Noelle was taken out of commission for a while when medical students (yelp!) broke her pelvic bone.an average of 20 medical students a week diagnose all sorts of birth complications like cesareans and breach births. Noelle can even hemorrhage, all while screaming in pain and yelling things like "don't touch me" at the medical students.
Great, at this rate she's gonna have like 1,000 babies a year. WHO KEEPS KNOCKING THIS ROBOTIC BITCH UP? I'm looking at you, shifty night patrolman! DUM DUM DUM!
University of Arizona Medical Students Help Robot Give Birth to Baby Robot [phoenixnewtimes]
Thanks to Demon Spawn, who get it pregnant with like thirty little devil babies.
Sep 9 2009 Huuuge Robot Statue Coming To South Korea
If you thought the 59-foot Gundam statue in Japan was large, boy were you wrong. Because South Korea is erecting a massive 364-foot statue (twice as large as the Statue of Liberty) of Robot Taekwon V (aka Voltar the Invincible). Scared? It gets worse. You see, the statue is being built for a new amusement park called Robot Land. Geez, talk about scarring your children for life. This is worse than coming downstairs on Christmas hoping for a Nintendo, only to find your mom gangbanging the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny underneath the tree. Nobody even ate the cookies!
giant robot taekwon v statue will be six times as large as giant gundam statue [technabob]
Sep 2 2009 Tactical Canned Bacon Has 10-Year Shelf Life
Sure we've seen canned bacon before, but I don't want to seem I give preferential treatment to one pig's belly over another, so here's Tac Bac! Like its competitor, this bacon is good for TEN FREAKIN' YEARS. Buy now and you can eat the very same can in 2019 while huddled in your basement praying the robots' heat sensors can't reach you down there. Each tactical can will set you back $16 and contains approximately 54 strips of fatty pig. Definitely not the cheapest thing to survive on, but it's worlds better than ten year old Ho-Hos and Ding Dongs, which, I don't care if they're the last things on earth, are still illegal.
Thanks to MDGrein, JFreezy, stereotypical, Harsh, Cpt. Awesome, Ste, Hammer, Dave, LucidSteel, Bryan, shogunu, and anyone I may have missed, you are all welcome to take shelter in my robot-proof lair, but only because I love sausage fests.
Sep 2 2009 Japan To Build An Outerspace Power Plant (To Power The Robots Of The Apocalypse)
Somebody better blast a proton torpedo through this thing's auxiliary exhaust port or it's game over, man. I'm serious too -- if you don't think this thing isn't gonna be powering our metallic harbingers of death, you're delusional. So, yeah, Japan is coughing up $21 billion to have a bigass solar panel floating around in space and sending the energy back to planet urf.
[The power station] will beam enough energy back to Earth to power 294,000 homes. With no cables.
The whole deal is being put together by Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and industrial design company IGI Corp. The plan involves a gigantic solar panel floating around in space, soaking up a gigawatt of energy and beaming it to Earth without the use of cables. And they hope to have it ready to rock within four years.
Wow, you're not gonna wanna get in the way of that energy beam. Because one time I stood in front of a satellite internet dish for too long and 0101001010 10011 00001 01010010 1010 010100111 0101. Whoa, what just happened -- and why are my pants wet?
Japan to Spend $21,000,000,000 on a Power Plant in F%#king Space [gizmodo]
Thanks to Brian and Schmitty, who know the only the only good station in space is a topless service station with a Slush Puppy machine and lots of candy.
Aug 28 2009 You Better Not Push Me Down The Stairs: Wheelchair Of The Future
The Veda International Robot Research and Development Centre (in Japan, of course) is hard at work developing a wheelchair for all the aging fogies in the country. And this is it, the Rodem. It's being touted as the wheelchair of the future. Pfft, I'll believe it when my grandpa has one. Isn't that right, gramps? I SAID, "ISN'T THAT RIGHT, GRAMPS?!"
Right now Rodem isn't much of a robot, but the people at Veda still want to add more features to the not-wheelchair; for example, Tmsuk president Yoichi Takamoto said, "...we could add a new function so it comes to your bedside when you call."
Hmm, I'm not sure how I feel about a wheelchair with robotic features. Yes I do -- I don't like it. No, the only improvements of the current wheelchair we need are an air horn and naked lady mudflaps. Now those would really put the whee in wheelchair -- am I right, gramps? I'm over here, you're talking to a chair. Now drink your juicebox and tell me where you buried the money.
Hit the jump for a shot of some poor bastard with a broken leg toting his own hospital bed around with the thing.
Continue Reading " You Better Not Push Me Down The Stairs: Wheelchair Of The Future "
Aug 25 2009 Wrong, Just Plain Wrong: Two Robots Kissing
Listen, as long as you're human I firmly believe you should be able to kiss and have relations and relationships with whoever you want (provided they feel the same about you). I don't care if you're black, brown, yellow, blue, red, white, clear, striped, dotted, Canadian, from Australia, have food allergies, are bi, straight, gay or super gay, I say go for it. Robots, not so much. Robots should all burn in a fire.
Video: The first (televised) kiss between robots [engadget]
Thanks to Xavier, Mr. Robbot, Peterman, Joe Mamma, 3d, Kenneth and Captain Awesome, who swear they've never tried kissing themselves in the mirror and are all terrible liars.
Aug 20 2009 Wonderful News: Robots Learn How To Lie
In an experiment that shouldn't surprise anybody with half a brain that sleeps with a giant robot-burning laser under their pillow, scientists have shown that robots have the ability to evolve and lie. And this is to one another -- imagine what they'd tell a human! Also, this quote is kind of long, but it's interesting and important to read if you want to understand the experiment. However, if you just want to type FIRST! in the comments and not learn anything, you should probably skip it (and then off a building). Did I say skip? I meant dive. Just kidding, I don't care.
In an experiment run at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne, Switzerland*, robots that were designed to cooperate in searching out a beneficial resource and avoiding a poisonous one learned to lie to each other in an attempt to hoard the resource.
The experiment involved 1,000 robots divided into 10 different groups. Each robot had a sensor, a blue light, and its own 264-bit binary code "genome" that governed how it reacted to different stimuli. The first generation robots were programmed to turn the light on when they found the good resource, helping the other robots in the group find it.The robots got higher marks for finding and sitting on the good resource, and negative points for hanging around the poisoned resource. The 200 highest-scoring genomes were then randomly "mated" and mutated to produce a new generation of programming. Within nine generations, the robots became excellent at finding the positive resource, and communicating with each other to direct other robots to the good resource.
However, there was a catch. A limited amount of access to the good resource meant that not every robot could benefit when it was found, and overcrowding could drive away the robot that originally found it.
After 500 generations, 60 percent of the robots had evolved to keep their light off when they found the good resource, hogging it all for themselves. Even more telling, a third of the robots evolved to actually look for the liars by developing an aversion to the light; the exact opposite of their original programming!
Notice how I bolded that last line? Reread it. Anybody else see something inherently wrong with that? Now, if you will recall the first law of robotics: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. See where I'm going with this? OUTERSPACE BITCHES, I'M NOT WAITING AROUND FOR THIS SHIT TO GO DOWN.
Evolving Robots Learn To Lie To Each Other [popsci]
Thanks to Sarah, biggity2bit, greg, Phil, John, Pepper, Sven, Shawn, Rossco, Terrance, timpeva, ffffffffffffffffffffffffffff, SharaSue, Sn0zz, SeanJon, billcollider, Tyrogyro and yayinternets, who only lie about their age and marital status.
Aug 11 2009 Who Needs Humans?: One Program Makes Mario Levels, Another Program Plays Them
This is a video of an artificial intelligence program playing a Mario level created by another program that can create infinite variations of levels on its own. Obviously, this is how robots will entertain themselves after there are no more humans to torture. Well, this and massive oil-fueled orgies.
Infinite Mario AI [collegehumor]
Thanks to jimmy, who can design and play Mario levels flawlessly with genuine intelligence. None of that artificial crap for him.
Aug 6 2009 Burn It With Hot Water!: Ramen Cooking Robot
A Tokyo restaurant has programmed an industrial robot nicknamed Ramen-Bot to cook Ramen noodles for soon to be poisoned customers. Now I don't know about you, but I don't trust it. And as a matter of fact -- I only eat food processed in non-robotic factories. Because, damnit, I'm a humanitarian. Mmmm, people.
Thanks to Drew, Michael, cathatter and Chris, who would rather take their chances with employees not washing their hands.
Jul 31 2009 Robotic Arms Have Come A Long Way. A Long, Much More Deadly Way (Hold Me)
This is a video of a bunch of different robotic hands showing how dexterous they are at bouncing balls, gripping things, throwing things, catching things and a bunch of other fun stuff robots shouldn't be allowed to do. I mean, what is this, robot gym class? Next thing you know they're gonna be whipping your ass with a wet towel in the locker room. WHICH IS ONLY FUN WHEN TWO GROWN MEN DO IT. Am I right guys? Love that game.
Thanks to Chris and Aroinak, who once shot a bot in Reno and didn't even stick around. Way to go guys, there could have been more.
Jul 31 2009 Robotic Moles To Deliver Goods Underground
An army of little robots that travel through a city's existing sewer lines delivering packages of death to unsuspecting recipients. That sounds wonderful.
The brainchild of designer Phillip Hermes, the Urban Mole is a capsule that travels through existing networks of underground pipes in order to transport packages as diverse as groceries, signed documents and any title that appears on Oprah's Book Club.
According to VisionWorks, "The pipe system is structured like a road network - the more traffic, the bigger the pipe." Electric rails within the pipes provide juice for the Mole's motors in a system that works like a miniature subway. Still more pipes run from drop-off points to delivery centers called MoleStations...where customers can retrieve their items locally. The designer estimates that the average cross-town delivery could take place in less than ten minutes.
Interesting, but it'll never work. Mainly because you and I are gonna sit down there with night vision goggles and crowbars and bash every single one of these things open waiting for a shipment of diamonds. Then, we'll order pizza and party with the ninja turtles. COWABUNGA!
Hit the jump for a coupe more shots of the conceptual couriers.
Continue Reading " Robotic Moles To Deliver Goods Underground "
