China Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 Domestic robots with a taste for flesh Futuristic-looking robots like Honda's sleek humanoid Asimo don't cut it for designer James Auger, at the Royal College of Art, London. Believing that they need to fit unobtrusively into the home, he has built robotic furniture. And, believing they need to be useful and entertaining, he has given the furniture an appetite for vermin, like mice and flies. Click here for a gallery of carnivorous robots Auger worked with long time collaborator and fellow designer Jimmy Loizeau to build the five domestic robots. Each can sense its environment, has mechanical moving parts, and can perform basic services for its human hosts, such as telling the time or lighting a room. 'Game of life' But the robots also have a taste for flesh. They can gain energy by chomping on flies and mice, an idea inspired by researchers at Bristol Robotics Lab, UK, who built a fly-powered robot and have also suggested that marine robots could feed on plankton. The pests are lured in and digested by an internal microbial fuel cell. This exploits the way microbes generate free electrons and hydrogen ions when oxidising chemicals for energy. Electronics can be powered by directing the electrons around an external circuit before reuniting them with the ions. "As soon as there is a predatory robot in the room the scene becomes loaded with potential," Auger told New Scientist. "A fly buzzing around the window suddenly becomes an actor in a live game of life, as the viewer half wills it towards the robot and half hopes for it to escape." Click on the link for the full article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GibbsFactor Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 This is only the beginning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boofMcboof Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 This can't end well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnyderShrugged Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 I'm not too supportive of flesh eating robots in any form. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zguy28 Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 Soon we won't be needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickalino Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 Not concerned.....I eat robots for lunch, and I have a big appetite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
China Posted June 29, 2009 Author Share Posted June 29, 2009 I'll be sure to keep an eye on our Roomba, and lift my feet when it gets too close. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedlightG20 Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 I'm more worried about the green glow from "Maximum Overdrive" falling over the earth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zguy28 Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 I'm more worried about the green glow from "Maximum Overdrive" falling over the earth.Not to mention demonic industrial laundry presses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
China Posted June 30, 2009 Author Share Posted June 30, 2009 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PokerPacker Posted June 30, 2009 Share Posted June 30, 2009 so at no point in the invention of this did someone say "this may not be the best idea we've ever had"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SolidSnake84 Posted June 30, 2009 Share Posted June 30, 2009 Of Course terminators didn't desire to eat human flesh, but Cameron could eat and assumedly gained energy from taking in the food. I've always believed a synthetic terminator type organism is entirely within the realm of science. Now cannibalistic terminators, that is a truly horrific thought... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enter Apotheosis Posted June 30, 2009 Share Posted June 30, 2009 I, for one, welcome our new machine overlords. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HighOnHendrix Posted June 30, 2009 Share Posted June 30, 2009 Someone actually wrote a book entitled, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"??? (See picture in post #10.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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