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Tesla's toy boat: A drone before its time
Welcome to Time Machines, where we offer up a selection of mechanical oddities, milestone gadgets and unique inventions to test out your tech-history skills. The military complex has certainly embraced the concept of telerobotics, especially in the use of drones, but luckily the technology has also led to other, more peaceful applications. Drones have been used to entertain, take on laborious tasks and even deliver packages (and burritos!). As we pursue the development of remotely controlled and autonomous craft, we must tread carefully or suffer the same fate as the fabled Icarus. Nikola Tesla saw both the terrible as well as the beneficial consequences for this technology when he debuted the "remote control" and the jury is still out as to whether we'll succumb to a dystopian Terminator-style future or reach a peaceful stasis, where we harness the usefulness of robots and autonomous devices, and avoid the worst-case scenarios.
Britain's oldest working television goes up for auction
What's 75 years old, made of wood, and largely the result of some secret military radar research? The Marconiphone 702 television pictured above, which is believed to be the oldest working television in Britain, and possibly the world. It was tracked down by a collector a few years ago, and is now set to go up for auction on April 19th at Bonhams in London, where it has an estimated sale price of £5,000 but is expected to sell for "much more." That will buy you a 12-inch screen that actually has its image reflected on a mirror in the lid, along with most of the original parts -- only about 30 percent have been replaced to get the set functional again. It can even receive digital channels with the aid of a Freeview box. Head on past the break for a glimpse of it in action.
