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Motorola Charm spotted in the wild, said to be hitting T-Mobile later this month
We'd already had a pretty good indication that the Motorola Charm was headed to T-Mobile, but it looks like most doubt has now been put to rest -- TmoNews has what appears to be the first shot of the phone in the wild, and evidence that materials (with the name "Project Basil') are already arriving at T-Mobile stores. Unfortunately, there's not much new information otherwise, but the site's tipster has apparently confirmed that the phone does indeed have a Backflip-like touchpad on the rear and that the screen is around 3-inches. Still no word on an exact release date, but TmoNews says it should be rolling out by the end of the month.
Basil the Robot trained for symbolic recognition, beer toting
Though not much of a looker -- feel free to insert your own beer goggles joke here -- Basil the Robot is an experiment by Jim and Louise Gunderson to train an AI to identify its surroundings symbolically. That way, the couple hopes, he can react dynamically in new environments. Basil was intended to be shown off at a Cafe Scientifique meeting by having him go to the bar and order drinks for his creators, but that proved unsuccessful when Basil's battery died. The couple did videotape a successful trial run from the night before, which you can see after the break. Basil will next receive a microphone for voice commands and be upgraded from his current sonar navigation to a video sight system. The eventual goal is to teach Basil to go to the local brewery and pick up beer. Sure, we're still terrified of the robot revolution, but let's get serious here -- who are we to deny our mechanical overlords if they keep proffering us six-packs? Hit up the read link for the full story.[Via Metafilter]
