That seems to be an increasingly common misusage as “jibe” becomes less commonly used. But it really is a malapropism.
That’s why Amazon wanted the delivery drones - they knew that Google was acquiring the cheetah-bots so they had to find an alternate delivery system.
1 Like
Speaking of ED209 - here is some classic UK hip hop that features sound bites from ED and Robocop.
1 Like
Until the point where enough people use it… 
1 Like
oooo, I did love this song that year.
Ya meatbots are boring.
Seems like a lot of R&D for an off switch. But nicer for horses, so you know, knock yourselves out, Boston Dynamics!
Immediately useful or not, it’s excellent basic research, and by definition that eventually pays off (though not necessarily for the folks who funded it).
Well don’t get me wrong, I think these things are awesome, its just that they seem to be replicating functionality that we used to achieve with animals. I am genuinely interested in whether we’ve discontinued animal use in warfare because of practical issues or animal welfare. Just not quite interested enough to google it.
True. There may be multiple reasons for investigating this.
-
Animals need feed; it’s possible that fuel is a better fit for today’s supply chain (though you can’t turn a robot loose to graze). The hope may be to move to solar eventually. That would also solve the problem of that gawdawful-noisy engine.
-
Animals need handlers. Rather than pack mule, think walking drone, tele-operable and/or with a GPS or beacon-based “homing instinct”.
-
There may be combinations of capabilities we can build into a robot that we can’t get in a single animal.
That’s just off the cuff. I presume there was a formal proposal at some point which gives the actual arguments; it might be possible to get that under FOIA or through your congresscritter.
I present EATR the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot program.
It’s being developed to burn plant matter in a hybrid steam engine configuration. But then there’s also this article from National Geographic, which is an overview of a number of robots that can digest insects in a microbial fuel cell. One of the little guys can run 12 days on eight flies.
I’m having trouble finding references to the robot I’m really looking for, which if IIRC was basically a table with a trapdoor that opened up into a microbial fuel cell. It was designed to trap, kill and digest mice and rats. It might have just been a concept with no actual hardware built though.
I’m not quite sure I’m ready to ponder the concept of robot excreta at this hour of the morning.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
