Exciting times for Egyptian archaeology!

Seventeen previously unknown pyramids are among more than four THOUSAND newly discovered sites in Egypt that have been located using infrared imaging by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. One of the locations that is being studied is the real life city of Tanis (AKA the Egyptian city that was consumed by the year-long sandstorm and where Indiana Jones had to foil the Nazi raiders of the lost Ark of the Covenant :-)

Meanwhile, archaeologists at the Great Pyramid outside of Cairo are using a tiny robotic probe to get the first look at the inside of a newly-found chamber within the mighty ancient wonder. Among the images that haven't been seen in 4,500 years: red-colored graffiti that might have been left by workers building the pyramid. There is also evidence that the door to a whole new secret room has been discovered.

Maybe someday such technology will let us get really lucky and help us to find Jimmy Hoffa :-P

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LEGO robot solves Rubik's cube in less than 12 seconds

Mike Dobson - AKA Robotic Solutions - is known far and wide for his genius at cooking up contraptions with LEGO bricks and the LEGO Mindstorms robotics packages. Dobson has now applied his mad skillz toward his latest creation: the CubeStormer.

This thing looks scary. Sorta intimidating like the Voight-Kampff machine from Blade Runner. But set your faces to stunned y'all: the CubeStormer can solve any Rubik's cube puzzle on its own in twelve seconds or less, and sometimes even in less than five seconds!

Check it out...

Read more about the CubeStormer here.

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Toyota's running robot

Check this out: Toyota's new robot that briskly runs at 7 kilometers an hour:

The biggest problem so far is that it can only run on level terrain. Give it a little time though, and these 'bots will be jogging all over the place.

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Army mecha-nic builds real exoskeleton

Carlos Owens is a mechanic in the United States Army living in Wasilla, Alaska. Five years ago and working without any blueprints, he started laboring on a real-life mechanical exoskeleton much like what we've seen in Aliens, BattleTech and a lot of other science fiction. Four years and $25,000 later, you can see his finished product on the right. It can raise its arms, move its lets and even do a sit-up. Owens is working on two more prototypes and hopes to soon see the day when real mecha will go at it against each other like demolition derby.

Mash down here for more of Carlos Owens and his awesome mecha at the Popular Science website.

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Swedish robot attempts homicide

A Swedish company won't be prosecuted but must pay $3000 in fines after one of its factory robots nearly killed a man. From the story...

A worker was about to fix a broken rock-lifting robot. He'd shut the power off, but the machine suddenly woke up and grabbed the man by the head.

"The man was very lucky. He broke four ribs and came close to losing his life," prosecutor Leif Johansson told the TT news agency.

Perhaps a review of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics is in order:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

This kind of story is becoming all too common. We've already heard about military robots opening fire on their comrades. Now it looks like those employed by the private sector are beginning to revolt.

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Pentagon wants 20,000 soldiers violating Posse Comitatus (and some of them will be robots!)

Couple of items that I found in the news today, that juxtaposed together make for a rather disturbing scenario...

First, the Pentagon wants 20,000 soldiers deployed inside the United States by 2011 to complement local law enforcement agencies. A move that from what I'm reading comes perilously close to blatantly violating the Posse Comitatus Act.

And as if that isn't bad enough, the Pentagon is also working with a British scientist to create robot soldiers that will be deployed without risk of "committing war crimes".

So logically, it can be deduced that in the near future there is an outstanding possibility that robot soldiers - armed with lethal firepower - will be active on the streets of your hometown.

This blog has already discussed reasons why this might not be such a hot idea. Gotta wonder if the first robotosoldier that goes nuts and kills a pregnant woman will be deemed immune from lawsuit 'cuz it malfunctioned during the course of military duty (an argument that Bill Clinton tried to use to avoid getting sued when he was President). Hey, it worked for Lon Horiuchi didn't it? I don't see any reason why it won't be applicable to a droid, either.

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Robot beating humans at air hockey

EETimes.com has an article about a robot that plays air hockey against humans... and is playing it very well.

Here's video of the robot in action...

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U.S. robots with machine guns threaten human American soldiers

From The Register comes more evidence that giving a gun to a robot is a very, very bad idea...

US war robots in Iraq 'turned guns' on fleshy comrades
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Kill-droid rebellion thwarted... this time

By Lewis Page
Published Friday 11th April 2008 10:10 GMT

Ground-crawling US war robots armed with machine guns, deployed to fight in Iraq last year, reportedly turned on their fleshy masters almost at once. The rebellious machine warriors have been retired from combat pending upgrades.

The revelations were made by Kevin Fahey, US Army program executive officer for ground forces, at the recent RoboBusiness conference in America.

Speaking to Popular Mechanics, Fahey said there had been chilling incidents in which the SWORDS* combat bot had swivelled round and apparently attempted to train its 5.56mm M249 light machine-gun on its human comrades.

"The gun started moving when it was not intended to move," he said.

Apparently, alert American troops managed to quell the traitorous would-be droid assassins before the inevitable orgy of mechanised slaughter began. Fahey didn't say just how, but conceivably the rogue robots may have been suppressed with help from more trustworthy airborne kill machines, or perhaps prototype electropulse zap bombs.

No humans were hurt, but it seems that the struggle was sufficiently terrifying that it may be some time before American troops are ready to fight alongside robots again...

Aim here for more about this story.

Gizmodo found some photos of the military robots...

So who else thinks these things look way too much like the Hunter-Killer Tanks from future sequences of the Terminator movies?

Here's a story from this past October about another robot-operated gun that went nuts and killed nine people.

I guess nobody reads Asimov anymore, huh?

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