DailyDirt: Unmanned Spaceships And Robots

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Artificial intelligence software still seems like science fiction -- even though smarter and smarter software is found in all sorts of everyday gadgets now. Robots are replacing humans in manufacturing jobs and doing all sorts of dirty work that people can't or won't do. So let's hear it for our automated slaves doing cool stuff for us.

The US Air Force's unmanned X-37B space plane lands after 7 months in orbit. Who really needs the space shuttle anymore? (And note that the Russians pretty much accomplished this feat with the Buran, too.) url

The Uncanny Valley still runs pretty deep, so creepy-looking robots will be the norm for the near future. url

There's nothing creepy about Japanese robots picking ripe strawberries: Yum. url

NerdKits has built a xylophone glockenspiel robot for the holidays -- and has released open source code along with DIY instructions for it. url

Filed Under: robots, spaceships