iRobot's Tactical mobile Robot- The Packbot!
In Los Angeles, CA at the Century Plaza Hotel for the "4Site conference" our favorite robot vacuum/military supplier, iRobot, showed off the "Tactical mobile robot! The "Tactical mobile Robot" has its own brochure and site: www.packbot.com. The rad thing about this platform is its vehicle "skateboard" design -where it appears to support various plug-in modules.
They also showed a 10-minute trailer for the new movie "I, Robot" starring Will Smith. Apparently the company has some relationship with filmmakers. We don't know if it's in name only, or if they consulted for the film.
One this we kinda worry about, on the site it says "The Robot should go in first" a quote from an Airborne Division Commander— while that's okay for now, what about when these robots have feelings, haven't we learned *anything* from sci-fi movies. First we make the bots, arm the bots, then they turn on us and take over, c'mon- this is textbook stuff here.
[Thanks Mike! www-wifi-toys.com]
