Pico, the cutest, tiniest leetle sumobot OMG Evar, has a bit of video floating around the interwebs.

We’ve covered him before, but the good folks at BotJunkie reminded us.

We get that much closer to Skynet:

Storm Worm Strikes At Security Pros

The worm can figure out which users are trying to probe its command-and-control servers, and it retaliates by launching DDoS attacks against them, shutting down their Internet access for days, says Josh Corman, host-protection architect for IBM/ISS, who led a session on network threats.

“As you try to investigate [Storm], it knows, and it punishes,” he says. “It fights back.”

::shiver::

Seriously, I really think there’s an oil-hall putsch going on or something. Loyal correspondent Johnny Payphone sends us these tidbits from around the country:

Rail Worker Killed in Robot Locomotive Accident
Runaway Robot Rail Cars Terrorize Portland
Detroit Bans Robot Rail Car Menace

Remind me not to hang around any rail yards in the immediate future. . .

HoooBoy.

9 South African Soliders were killed in an exercise which involved an autonomous Oerlikon GDF-005 anti-aircraft machine. The machine went haywire, spraying the soldiers with bullets after it appeared to become jammed during the exercise.

Sources say it was a software error.

(The video above is from a few years back but is making the rounds with this story. Info Here.)

Helen? Are you Sure?

[via Wired]

This just in from Stealth Correspondent Jared The Roboticist:

I have undeniable that the Roomba is no meager vacuuming robot, but is in fact a fully aware killing machine. I can only suspect why my Roomba Scheduler tried to burn down my apartment, maybe because of the beer I spilt on it, breaking its clean button, maybe it feels I don’t appreciate all the cleaning it does for me, but I came home to my roomba pulling the power cord from my printer out of the outlet strip. I picked the roomba off the cord and sent it on its way. I noticed a short time later that it had started to push a small wire bracket that I can only assume is stored inside its chassis for such devious purposes.

(Jared kindly enclosed photos of The Incident):

I watched as it pushed this bracket directly into the prongs of the power cord which the Roomba had so expertly pulled only part of the way out of the power strip. To my horror, this created a huge spark which turned out the power just in time for me to see my power strip catch fire. Luckily, I was able to immediately put it out, but I know now to never trust this killbot with my floors again.

You heard it here first, kids. Jared has pinpointed the beginnings of the upcoming robotic revolution. Make nice now and be the last up against the wall.

. . .from the bearer of a *very* sore thumb:

Could you please remind Mr. Learns-his-lesson-and-always-pays-attention what Shop Tip #3 is?

Shop Tips, kids. Love them, learn them, use them.

Charlie sends us this link to Australian Mary Nowsky’s blog Autonomous Mutations.

The blog is very well researched, *and* they are fans of the Flaming Lotii, Kal Spelletich and The Seemen, and Christian Ristow.

So those who have been playing along at home may or may not know that MissySB has unavoidable fixations on many things [Ya damn skippy she does -Mr. Robotics and The Rotor].

One of these things is the inestimable, the extravagant, the culturally-enriching 31-ton behemoth RoboSaurus, star of air shows and monster truck rallies everywhere.

Well boys and girls, the Day Of Reckoning has come:
RoboSaurus is on the auction block.

ZOMGROBOPONIES!!!!!11!1!!1!!one!!

From the consigners:

“This is without a doubt the largest, nastiest, most intimidating piece of machinery that we’ve ever consigned at Barrett-Jackson,” said Steve Davis, President of the Barrett-Jackson Auction Company. “Robosaurus is the first Life Magazine cover ‘star’ that Barrett-Jackson has ever featured – awesome!”

The auction is scheduled for Jan 2008. Feel free to bloodily wrestle Missy SB for the right to sit right in front of the auctioneer.

[via Robots.net]

[via Slava Robotam]

. . .because this is *way* better than screaming “Hey You Kids! Get the Hell off My Lawn!”

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Water Hobo:

[Tusind Takk, Le Boing]

This is where we keep The Rotor when we’re not using him.

Wednesday night, DorkbotSF held a fab benefit for Todd Blair, a stunningly amazing artist and teacher who was in a horrible forklift accident at Robodock in Amsterdam.

We had an auction, a silent auction, and presentations by interesting misfits. We drank beer, we ate delicious experimental treats by Mark Powell and we all we absolutely soggy with adoration, family and Pier 33 fish odor by the end of the evening. The die-hards who stayed to the end called Amsterdam to send some of the love to Alex and Todd. There were tears, laughter and jumbo DIY igniter boards. We raised a pile of cash for taking care of Todd and Alex and a good time was had by all on this bittersweet occasion.

Karen Marcelo has uploaded some pictures of the event to the interwebs. Here’s her follow-up note:

hi all

thank you to kyle minor for hosting us at his great space! thank you to eric paulos for MCing and our speakers:

ken goldberg
eric paulos
johannes grenzfurthner/monochrom
steve lassovzsky
joe grand

and especially to mark pauline a great close to the evening with lots of stories of the show at robodock and todd’s contributions to SRL.

also thanks to all our donors with special appreciation to david pescovitz and our friends at boingboing for their very generous donation which is SOLD at auction! and all of you that donated your skills, time, items.

thanks to our auctioneers mike dingle and jon sarriugarte and the rest of the auction team: alan and ellen anzalone, ralf burgert, rafflers sabrina merlo and jill miller.

thanks also to marc powell for catering, hopefully he’ll post his menu - it was awesome! including his tech gourmet crew among them geo wanking guru rich gibson!

thanks to pete macomber and wendi flybutter for bartending and all the SRL crew who came toghether to help make this happen. special thanks to nina alter and david calkins.

thanks to our door queens: lori dorn and simone davalos

and thanks and congrats to tcho amazing chocolate factory by the bay for winning the grand prize auction of the night, the boingboing ad! we appreciate your generosity!

and to all of you for coming out and supporting todd! the fundraiser exceeded my expectations and this does indeed put a nice dent in the expenses todd and alex face but this is a long haul, as you all know, coma / head injury recovery is a process that takes years so stay tuned for the other events coming up. hopefully you’ll have fun while supporting todd blair who has done so much for SRL, dorkbot, CCA, and kinetic art communities.

It was one of those great night where everybody showed up 100% and restored everybody else’s faith in humanity, or at least the humanity that exist among the gear head robot kinetic art people of San Francisco.

They send us these:

All groaning should be directed to knickers@suiciebots.com where it will promptly be ignored.

[Thanks Rochelle!]

It’s $79.99 of the finest plastic money can buy, now with added obnoxiousness!

It winks, it blinks, it says the time and if you hit the snooze button too many times you get a dressing down. Thirty different ways to be awakened. Thirty. So much fun we could vomit.

The cruel and unusual uses for this are already forming in our collective brain.

[Via Random Good Stuff]

. . .cats and dogs, living together. . .

From that sterling paper of record, the UK Metro:

People will marry robots, says scientist

Artificial intelligence researcher David Levy was awarded a PhD today by a Dutch university for his thesis, Intimate Relationships With Artificial Partners.

The Head Rotor, august recipient of one of those PH things himself (are they printed on litmus paper?) no doubt revels in the new addition to the company of he and his ilk.

This is Lev, built by the fine folks at Moonmilk Labs. He will be playing Patsy Cline’s mellow favorite, “Crazy”:

The other video he has available is theremin and a drummer named Thumpbot, playing “crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. I sense a theme.

[via CNET]