Robots Galore
I've just dug up a few week old articles that escaped me the first time round... the nifty devils.
Robots Puts Students First
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/robot-01i.html
Discusses a non-profit competition for clever robots, doing abnormal non-human tasks.
Robo Doc Gets An Eyefull
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/robot-01j.html
About the creation of an automated eye-testor, which has NASA interested for a startrek like autonomous doctor (not a hologram!)
Robots Dive in Quest for Weather Secrets of Seas
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011117/sc/australia_weather_dc_1.html
Mapping the marine currents via thousands of simple small robots that drift around. A good example of how stochasticity can help solve complex practical problems.
Embodied Intelligence Projects
Home page http://nms.lcs.mit.edu/fun/robots/
Also see http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/31/140215
Describes a lego robot that avoids walls, and guards a corridor. Sounds like the folks at MIT are having great fun!
Steering Behaviours
http://www.steeringbehaviors.de/
More of simulated robotics via simple reactive rules. The german team has done research in artificial life (there are more and more doing this), and created a user interface for their tool.
Robotic Fly
http://www.technologyreview.com/magazine/nov01/innovation5.asp
Shows the smallest ever robot with flapping wings. Not very smart yet, but hey... you can't have everything!
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