Thomas Edwards has built an interactive flirting tool. “Touch” enables two people to touch each other across the internet, ET-style:

As an added bonus, Thomas is looking for a few good dorkbotters:

I am looking for someone on the West Coast of the US to volunteer to take part in a “transcontinental touch”.

“Touch” will be demonstrated at the next Dorkbot DC meeting (Monday, Sept. 10, 2007 7-9PM ET). I am seeking a volunteer on the West coast (or at least 2,500 miles away) to demonstrate on the other side. The volunteer will need to connect their side of “Touch” to wired Ethernet Internet, and preferably be able to also take part in (free) videoconferencing via SightSpeed or at least get on UStream.tv so the Washington side can see what is going on at your side. “Touch” is a fairly plug-and-play if you have a reasonably standard Internet connection and DHCPed IP addresses.

Contact this space if you are interested!

I dunno if this has been posted before, but it’s one of my all time favorite robots:

Eat your heart out, Michael Bay.

For when the metal ones decide to come for you.

I never, ever get sick of watching this.

Cute little lethal machine presented by 5VOTLCORE, technology artists presenting at the other DEAF con, the Dutch Electronic Art Festival.

So cute. So lethal. So many artists with excellently executed white-boy dreadlocks. Yes.

5VOLTCORE has also done a few other nifty projects involving electricity, feedback and chaos. Their black and edgily designed website will fill you with existential dread and the feeling that someday, if you wear enough leather, you too, could be one of the cool kids.

NASA on Saturday is to launch space probe Phoenix on a nine-month journey to Mars’ arctic region, where it will dig through ice for clues to past or present microbial life on the red planet.

The Phoenix Mars Lander is scheduled for blastoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida on August 4, with a first attempt at 5:36 am (0936 GMT), and a second attempt, should it be needed, at 6:02 am (1002 GMT). more.

Don’t trust them with your kids
Don’t invite them to play bridge.

Rover engineers are growing increasingly concerned about the temperature of vital electronics on NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity while the rover stays nearly inactive due to a series of dust storms that has lasted for more than a month.

Dust in the atmosphere and dust settling onto Opportunity’s solar panels challenges the ability of the solar panels to convert sunlight into enough electricity to supply the rover’s needs. The most recent communication from Opportunity, received Monday, July 30, indicates that sunlight over the rover’s Meridiani Planum location remains only slightly less obscured than during the dustiest days Opportunity survived in mid-July. With dust now accumulating on the solar panels, the rover is producing barely as much energy as it is using in a very-low-power regimen it has been following since July 18.

This is cool. I want one.

Yes indeedy, we got everything you wanted to know about Parametric Polymorphism right here!

Just kidding folks, it’s Comix Cthursday! Today, it’s Achewood’s Great Moments in Cinema Brought To You by Roomba! The Robotic Floor Vac.

• A few Good Men
• Star Wars
• Episode 2

If you can make it through the video, we at SB will buy you a beer while you explain it to us. You know how to get in touch.

UPDATE FROM SB: Kevin Pratt, that brainy guy from CRASAR, sends us this comment:

“Watched the entire Isomorphism video you posted from Google; understood most of it.

Here’s what I learned…. There is a *very* good reason I actually build robots and do field work; God help me if I ever become a theoretical computer scientist, I’ll gnaw my own arm off.

And polymorphism is so much more interesting when you talk about polymorphic robots instead, like say a PackBot, or an Inuktun (both listed here.)

Now somebody said something about free drinks?”

We have the technology, we can rebuild him. . .

Greetings to the i-Limb by Touch Bionics. Juan Arredondo, a soldier injured in Iraq, is one of the first beneficiaries of the i-Limb, and from what it looks like he’s thrilled with the replacement (though it probably would have been nice to not need it in the first place).

Here’s Touch Bionics’ profile of Sgt. Arredondo.