I just got a couple of videos anonymousishly IMed to me as a part of the Great CarNAYgie Mellon Conspiracy. Daniel H. Wilson, the “mild mannered” humorist and author of How To Survive A Robot Uprising is uses his perverse powers of reverse psychology to make us think he’s on the side of the humans. Hah. Tis video shows us differently by trying to lull us into a false sense of security.

Yes, it’s Keepon, the infamous, adorable, squishy, slightly testicular robot that is actually much more complex than one would think (even Mr. Robotics, jaded fuck that he is, admitted this). Don’t let Keepon’s cuteness fool you. He’ll be just as much a part of the revolution as Skynet.

Daniel Wilson is also shilling for his alma mater CarNAYgie Mellon with this spiffy splash page that shows of his videos and the work of the lovely Ali Spagnola, whom we have previously covered.

I almost went to CarNAYgie Mellon once. I wanted to move to Pittsburgh and be a Penguins fan. Alas, it was not to be, I only made it into H&SS and not engineering or drama. Bastards.

In a slight departure from our regular format down here in the RoBunker, everybody give a big hand for the Number Of The Day, Number 107!

[Audience claps]

There are 107 pages of robot-themed handmade art on Etsy.com Some of it is toothachingly cute.

Episode #107 of MST3K was called “Robot Monster”

The online teevee show “Cute With Chris” also has Episode Number 107, entitled “Robot Cat”:

“Non-human animals should never be inhabaitants of the Uncanny Valley.” says Mr. Robotics. I would concur. This particular robot cat is just. . .creepy.

Chris Hancock of MIT published a paper for IEEE (of which both The Rotor and Mr. Robotics are members) entitled “Toward a Unified Paradigm for Constructing and Understanding Robot Processes“. It’s actually pretty good read, and guess what page of the IEEE 2002 Symposium on Human Centric Computing Languages and Environments book it’s in? Thaaat’s right, Page 107!

And the kicker:

Robot brains evolve at roughly 107 times the rate of humans. So said Hans Moravec of the the Dana Foundation, way back in 2001, a momentous date.

Since we’re going to be relegated to subservient status by the awesome intellect of the forthcoming robot technologies, we may as well occupy our time doing silly time sucking activities.

Like searching for the correlation between randomly chosen numbers and the word “Robot” on Google.

I really should get out more.

At last, the Metroccolis Inventors of Mechanical Evolution have finally perfected the ultimate breakthrough in personal robotics. Your Personal Robot is on sale right now, today, for normal household use. Your Personal Robot makes the everyday tasks of life just that much easier. Your Personal Robot is safe, sanitary, and effective for all your robot-oriented needs. Your Personal Robot will clean your house. Your Personal Robot will do your homework. Your Personal Robot will love you when your friends do not.

This unprecedented research has been going on since 1996, proving once again that science is sexy, and you would totally buy it a drink if you were cool enough.

(I must confess to a small piece of my history here: I went to circus school. I am a clown by birth and training. Your Personal Robot must be cool, because I am posting it against my very genetics. Having said that, I will say this to my brethren: WARNING: Mimes.)

Over here we dig pretty much anything that WowWee Robotics put out (hearkening back to the days when Mark Tilden used to crash on Mr. Robotics’ couch), and at CES they have unveiled a glorious, shiny, injection-molded plethora of new toys to mess about with.

Here’s a nice lil video with Veronica Belmont and Tribot.

GuardBot is totally going to be completely self-sufficient and on its own while you are out of the house. It will identify obstacles, never run out of batteries, run the right sound bite at the right moment, bring you coffee and collect the mail. Just like the Aibo, the ER-1, and HERO do. Um. Did.

More stuff from The neato Artificial Intelligence Blog pointed out by V. Blue.

Warren Ellis channels all robots, everywhere, when he repackages the Three Laws:

Robots do not want to have sex with you. Are you listening, Japan?

[Thanks Matt! (via Le Boing)]

I told you this would happen.

“Metalosis Maligna” is a fictitious documentary created in 2006 by Floris Kaayk of Microbia about a mysterious new disease affecting people with implants.

via the Squid

Futurist Paul Saffo expounds on why you should never, ever be allowed to drive a motor vehicle, ever:

Move Over, the Robot’s Driving: By the Year 2050, Forecasters Predict Robots Will Rule the Road

(Mr. Robotics already thinks I should never be allowed to drive a motor vehicle, ever, under any circumstances. Also, it should be made illegal for me personally to parallel park.)

[Thanks Paul!]

This just in from far-flung correspondent Ali Spagnola, and artist who does a bunch of stuff, not the least of which is thie neat music video:

Robots For Everyone indeed. So cute, so disarming. but what about when they TAKE OVER THE WORLD AND DESTROY ALL THAT WE HOLD DEAR?

Yeah I thought so. Off to Tea with Mr. Joy.

Let’s hear it for the Suicidebots homies Stanford University, who have won yet another DARPA Grand Challenge, this time over a citylike environment:

In all, 11 robotic vehicles set out on the race course Saturday morning, and while five scrubbed out for various reasons, the fact that six driverless vehicles drove a delivery route seems like a win for innovation. No car finished in the first race in 2004.

Big ups to Sebastian Thrun and the team that made Junior road-ready

South Korea has declared that there will be a robot in every home by the year 2020.

Yeah we’re late on the bandwagon to this, but we thought it was worth reporting since they actually seem to have a chance at success. South Korea is ridiculously wired (they are wifi and cell-coverage saturated) and are famous for being a population of early-adopters and gadget freaks. An example - remember Dog Poo Girl? Never fear, I am sure they use their powers for evil too.

[Via Freshcreation.nl]

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.