In this awesome Achewood T-shirt featuring lady’s bot Vlad. Just stay away from the soap.

Chris Onstad, who writes and draws Achewood full time, makes his living from schwag such as this. Support the arts. Buy a t-shirt.

Just what we needed, robots not only have superior intellect, response time, agility, etc, now we have to contend with their bodily fluids:

Yes, those brilliant minds at The University of Warwick in the UK have developed synthetic polymers that eerily imitate snot, and aid with machine scent detection like nobody’s business.

The scientists report that the mucus improved the sensitivity of a conventional electronic sniffer five-fold, helped deliver results more quickly, and allowed the nose to distinguish between scents, such as milk and vanilla, that it never could before. Engineer Julian Gardner, who led the research, says electronic snot-filled noses could debut in hospitals by 2011, when they will be sensitive enough to pick up the scent of diseases such as throat or eye infections long before visible symptoms crop up.

We in the RoBunker find it intriguing that diseases have their own scents. We’ll let you know when our labs perfect Eau Du Cholera, assuming anyone would actually wear it. . .

[Long Live the Robotariot, Communist Robot! (via PopSci)]

This is Availabot (Schulze & Webb)

Oh, paging Mr. qDot! I say, old chap, is this one gagging to be hacked or what?

Darn good question, that.

Though he wishes he was being serenaded by celebrities, turns out he’s been up to some major RPM building bots. We’ve mentioned the SWARM bots, which have been kicking some serious Rotor butt. But we returned the favor: last week we brought one out to the desert to see how it would do in the heat. Well, after some impromptu desert repair (featuring a heatsink fortuitously found on the floor of the Rotormobile) the Orb did some fine fine rolling. And we met some cool folks out there as well.

Speakin’ of heat sinking, the Rotor is up to another bot with co-conspirator Al Honig. More pictures soon, but Chassis will be a mobile drink-serving robot inspired by our fine friends at SHIFZ; with luck we can join the cool crowd at Roboexotica.

But first Chassis has got to get a move on. To this end I scavenged some burnt-out motor controllers from the FIRST robotics team. (Those who know the Rotor will be familiar with his cry of “Wait — don’t throw that out!! I can fix it!”) Now most of my scavenged junk goes into the junk pile, but because these are Rather Expensive Brand Name motor controllers, I thought I might have a go at salvaging them for the cost of a few new power FETs.

High-school students are tough on motor controllers:

Check out them dead FETs! When I blow them, they don’t look nearly as cool as this:

But Hail Mary Full of Magic Smoke, I was able to resurrect two speed controls of the four I had. (Of the remaining two, one only goes forward, and the other only goes backward. I’m saving those for Useless-Turn-In-Circles-bot.) Two, it turns out, it perfect for Chassis’ two drive motors.

More later!

Because guys with bulk email processors rank right up there with the Terminator:

Top cop Predicts Robot Crimewave:

Technology such as cloned part-robot humans used by organised crime gangs pose the greatest future challenge to police, along with online scamming, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Mick Keelty says.

The Hell. The Commish may have a few good points about combating online crimes like identity theft and internet scams, and even makes a few good theoretical reaches into policing Second Life for cybercrime, but then the pills kick in and he goes on about part-human, part cloned robot people capable of leaping tall building in a single bound.

Too may nights up late reading comics under the covers Officer?

“You could (also) have technology acting at the direction of a human being, but the human being being distanced considerably from the actual crime scene.”

As Mr. Robotics says “One could also drive an RC car into a bank with a holdup note. Doesn’t mean the robot armies are coming about any time soon.”

Granted, remotely-programmed vehicles (an autonomous robot with a specific directive) are harder to track to the operator rather than a mere-smear RC controlled car, but still, the technology is so very far off that chances are the science and practice of law enforcement will have evolved into something wholly different from what it is nowadays.

Stand down, AFP, Skynet has not yet become sentient. We’ll keep you posted though.

(Image courtesy Salon.com)

. . .where you just *don’t* have the strength to, say, pull on a flimsy piece of paper. .

Introducing the Automatic TP Dispenser:

Actually, the folks at Kimberly-Clark are pretty prescient with this idea, as it will probably save lots of paper with it’s cute little electric motion sensor.

OK, I’m sure you know Brian Eno. He writes songs ‘n’ stuff.

Now, how cool would it be if Brian wrote, sang, recorded, and mixed a song about you?

Sorry, you have to be the queen of the robots to have that happen. And that means it only happens for our very own Missy SuicideBot (aka, Simone).

Yes, Brian wrote a song for her - click here to listen!

But it gets better.

A song about Simone needs a chorus. Backup singers are:

Brian Eno (Duh)
Danny Hillis (of Thinking Machines, Walt Disney Imagineering, Applied Minds, Long Now etc.)
Stewart Brand (Whole Earth Access, the WELL, LongNow, etc.)
David Rumsey (Cartography Associates, Luna Imaging, Long Now, etc.)
Peter Schwartz (Global Business Network, Long Now, etc.)
Alexander Rose (Simone’s solenoid, motor, and crack dealer from Inertia Labs (Robotics))

Top that. Just try.

The husbandly pride is exploding everywhere.

The Revolution is at hand!

The Communist Robot Manifesto

Yeah, we don’t know either, but they have a store!!

Here’s a nifty little article that found us here in the Robunker about ways you can become the cyborg you’ve always dreamed of being:

If you’ve managed to keep all your limbs and if implants turn you off, you can still become somewhat bionic with your accessories. The Fossil - Bluetooth caller ID watch notifies you when your phone rings with a discreet vibrating sensation and an OLED display that reveals the caller’s name and/or number. This watch also accepts text messages. The drawback to the price of this watch (currently $250.00) is that you need to obtain Bluetooth technology for it to work.

Hm, digital watches may once again be a pretty neat idea.

We here in the Robunker have been scheming about becoming cyborgs for awhile now. The problem we have is that we can’t decide whether to merely improve our hearing or just get really, really good at making precision cocktails.

Here’s a nifty-looking pan-asian robot competition, to take place in Vietnam:

This competition’s goal is fostering joyous cooperation between students for the eventual domination of their creations:
From BruneiDirect.com:

The ABU Robocon competition requires participants to use their creativity and knowledge on technology to invent robots. The event also aims to allow for the strengthening of relations between Asia Pacific youths who have shared interests.

The mission for this competition is quite lyrical. This year’s is based on the legend of Ha Long, a story about the creation of Ha Long and Bai Tu Long islands:

The legend of Ha Long has it that, ‘Once upon a time, soon after the Viet people established their country, invaders came. The Jade Emperor sent Mother Dragon and her Child Dragons down to earth to help the Viet people fight against their enemy. Right at the time invaders’ boats were rushing to the shore, the dragons landed down on earth. The dragons immediately sent out from their mouths a lot of pearls, which then turned into thousands of stone islands emerging in the sea like great walls challenging the invaders’ boats. The fast boats couldn’t manage to stop and crashed into the islands and into each other and broke into pieces.

After the victory, Mother Dragon and Child Dragons didn’t return Heaven but stayed on earth at the place where the battle had occurred. The location Mother Dragon landed is nowadays Ha long Bay and where Child Dragons descended is now Bai Tu Long.

Ha Long is the wonderful and skilful masterpiece of the Creation and of nature that only Vietnam was bestowed. Ha Long has become the pride of not only the locals but also of all Vietnamese people when it was twice recognized as the World Natural Heritage by UNESCO for its geographical and geomorphologic values. With its unique beauty, Ha Long is one of the most ideal destinations in Vietnam.

The rules of Robocon 2007 are built basing on this legend of Ha Long. A team of robots (symbolizing dragons) will carry the blocks having the shape of cylinder (symbolizing pearls) to build various kinds of islands symbolizing ‘Ha Long’; and ‘Bai Tu Long’ . The first team to complete the building of ‘Victory islands’ (in the shape of letter V in the centre of the Game Field) will be the winner. Duration of the game is three minutes.

Oh to be in Hanoi is August. . .hmm, okay perhaps not. They have that whole tropical summer things there. Bad for the diodes.