The Advanced Robotic System Laboratories (ARSL for Short) is currently developing a robot they call PROTO. PROTO is a state of the art robot who’s goal is to develop a system to make communication between robots and humans more “natural” .

PROTO has movable eyes, eyebrows, mouth, hands etc… all of which are designed to make him more natural and easier to communicate with.  I say all of these things just make him more freaky looking. Why make a robot look like a human? Why worry that we arn’t going to be able to communicate with a robot because it doesn’t have eyebrows? Its a robot. Just as we should not perscribe human emotions or feelings onto animals we should not build them into an artificial creature. First step: PROTO. Second step: T-800.
Thank god that for now he has to be hardlined into a computer in order to work. However ARSL does say that they PROTO will aid in the “development of a fully self-contained humanoid robot platform”. Will it be self contained to make it better equipped to try and find Sarah Connor? Thank god that they have the sense to keep this thing in chains

The ChemBot is a new jelly like robot being developed by DARPA and the US Army. Although still a prototype, this robot is a vision of what the future of robotics could hold. This jelly like robot can change it’s shape and squeeze through holes and cracks to reach it’s goal.

Source CNET News

What is the percentage that Artificial Intelligence will evolve to the point that Robots will be able to reproduce? A “10 percent chance … within 25 years and a 90 percent chance of it occurring within 75 years“ according to David McAllester, a professor and chief academic officer at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago. This turning point is referred to as the “the Singularity” and once reached, would be the last moment robots would need humans for their own survival.

Source Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Tomotaka Takahashi, of ROBO-GARAGE, has released preliminary glimpses of his newest addition to the robot family – the ROPID.

Source Plastic Pals

This 14″ tall child-like robot can not only speak and gesture, but can quickly run and maneuver. Doesn’t this scream ‘bad idea’ to anyone else. A small adorable humanoid figure that can trick you into thinking it’s child like and innocent. It also possesses the ability to quickly turn, run and wants nothing more than to stab you with sharp objects. Sounds familiar right – that’s because we’re just recreating the events in Child’s Play and will have hordes of psychopathic robotic death dolls harvesting our organs for food.

Researchers think that it’s a good idea to build a fleet of autonomous Space Robots to Explore Mars with “squadrons of wheeled rovers and floating robot boats” that would scour Mar’s surface for scientific evidence of water and other incites into Mar’s environment. That sounds like a good idea until the robot’s get fed up with taking orders from Earth, develop their own destructive agenda and turn on their previous masters.

Source Discover

Boston Dynamics has created an upright bipedal robot to test protective clothing used by the US Army. Not only does the robot walk like a human but it can balance and adjust it’s movement when pushed; as well as simulating other human functions such as body temperature and sweating.

Source: Boston Dynamics

Researchers at the Universities of Edinburgh and Sheffield are working on giving robots the ability to touch through the aid of sensors that mimic how animal whiskers function.

Source BBC News

The Large Hadron Colliders has had a very lackluster career since it’s opening in September of last year with constant delays and maintenance. Recently two noted physicists have released papers proposing that LHC might be sabotaged from the future. Source: San Francisco Chronicle This Theory is the the Higgs boson has traveled back in time to prevent itself from being created.

While this theory may be a plausible assumption, I think it’s even more plausible that evil robots from the future are traveling back in time to prevent us from discovering the one weapon that may save the human race from eventual destruction.

Recently being developed for the Pentagon is a new type of robot that can find and eat types of biomass to power its self. Poorly named the EATR, Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot, this robot could live months or years without having to be refueled because it’s capable to forage everything it needs. Although the creators claim the robot will be programmed to distinguish between human and non-human energy sources, I don’t doubt for a second that this robot could easy turn on us when it needs human flesh for it’s own survival. Worse yet, this biomass fuel source concept could be repurposed for a whole line of flesh eating robot machines; including “a transport, an ambulance, a communications center, even a mobile gunship” – They want to make flying, machine gun wielding machines that could power themselves from human bodies. Seems like a bad idea.

Source Fox News

South African ATM Machines are armed with pepper spray to stop criminals from jacking some easy cash. Little did they know the machines aren’t just targeting would be thieves, but they’re attacking their own maintenance workers. The first repair man that it maced may have been an accident. Maybe even two. But three? Not very likely. We’re already arming them? And we are letting the robots decide who should be maced and who shouldn’t? This is way to much robot freedom.

Source Wired