Review: WowWee Roborover gets friendly with your furniture

remote controlled posts

Clearly, vaccinations are so three years ago. As the race continues to find the best, most mobile internal transportation device for delivering drugs to remote places within the body, Peer Fischer of The Rowland Institute at Harvard University has teamed with colleague Ambarish Ghosh to concoct the wild creation you see to the right. The glass-derived nanopropeller was designed to move in a corkscrew motion in order to plow through syrupy, viscous liquids within the human frame. The device itself is fantastically small, measuring just 200 to 300 nanometers across at the head and 1 to 2 micrometers long. Fischer points out that each of these can be controlled with a striking amount of precision via an external magnetic field, though we don't get the impression that they'll be on to FDA testing in the near future. Ah well, at least our gra, er, great-grandchildren will be all taken care of.
Though certainly not the first gizmo designed with aerial photography in mind, the Aeryon Scout is a notch above most alternatives. The hovering platform enables users to capture still shots and log digital video from up above, and while it can be controlled remotely, we're also hearing that autonomous navigation isn't totally out of reach. Currently, the device is still looking to escape the prototype stage, but its creators are already eying police forces, security firms and surveying / engineering businesses in hopes of landing a few clients. Considering the stunningly high $30,000 to $50,000 price tag, we'd say they're looking in the right (read: only) direction.
Although other countries have deployed gun-toting robots and there's no shortage of companies trying to develop weaponized bots for Uncle Sam, it looks like the first test of actual killer robots in battle has ended in a whimper: the Army's TALON SWORD gunbots, are headed home, after being plagued with control issues. Yeah, that's right -- control issues. Apparently it was too hard to prevent the Army's gun-equipped robot from moving its gun "when it was not intended to move." Reassuring, no? The Army doesn't sound too enthused about another go-round, saying, "once you've done something that's really bad, it can take 10 or 20 years to try it again." Ouch. On the plus side, at least that's 20 more years before we're all put to work in the mines, no?
While the Army is already taking good care of our wounded robots patrolling through Iraq, a recent deployment of three special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action systems (SWORDS) has placed rifle-equipped bots in the line of fire. The trio, which all handle M249s, are "are remotely controlled by a soldier through a terminal," and while their exact whereabouts and missions remain classified, the armed machines were reportedly designed to handle "high risk" combat scenarios if necessary. Currently, there's no record of a SWORD actually firing its weapon, but considering that each of these devices can potentially remove a human from harm, don't be surprised to see full blown platoons being unleashed when finances allow.









