I came across an interesting article at globalsecurity.org about Predator drones.  I never hear of crashes with the unmanned weapon of death and by happenstance, this article listed several such instances.  The one that really amazed me though was a crash that happened in January 2005.  According to the article

“The incident occurred when the pilot and sensor operators control stations experienced a malfunction with their computer control system. Both control stations were rebooted, but all communication links with the aircraft were lost and never regained. The incident happened approximately eight and a half hours into the mission, with the aircraft flying uncontrolled and crashing approximately 21 hours into the flight.”

I don’t know if you caught that last little bit, but the Predator drone was flying for twelve and a half hours unpiloted before it crashed…TWELVE AND A HALF HOURS!  So basically, you could be sitting on your front porch when a Predator drone launched from Germany comes crashing on your doorstep because the pilot had to reboot his Windows ME installation.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/mq-1b.htm

Imagine if the U.S. Army was developing a 11 inch flying drone that flies like a bat, but scurries like a cockroach…then combine that with the one atom large transistor currently being developed and a material that basically achieves invisibility in Japan…what do you get?

+ + =

11 inch flying cockroach drone

1 atom large transistor

Invisibility

or maybe the robots will just think you’re trying to placate them and vaporize you anyways…

Buy from chopshopstore

I don’t know if the Kennedy administration is to blame for this, but the 1965 they are talking about in this article sure didn’t pan out.  But maybe that’s a good thing.

Sean Connolly takes on RuBot II at the UK open Rubik’s Championships 2006.

Panelists discuss whether controversial decisions by the Robot Congress and President Executron indicate robots have too much control over our lives.

The guy who invented the Segway is building a better cyborg.  Check it out.