Category: Cool Stuff

If you’ve checked out my Give me Gifts! page, you’ll know I want the book “How to Survive a Robot Uprising” for my collection. Sure, many think “Pure folly!” even though they know how awesome I am. I know most people fail to accept the Terminator future (and similar future documentories) as likely or even viable, but I present to you much evidence from Engadget and MAKEzine to support my claims.

• First, the under-floor inspection bot. Here is where the robots will begin their numerical rise to supremacy. Just as the aliens attacked from the ceiling, the robots will start from beneath our feet.
  

  Our robot-breeding friends over in Japan — at the Chiba Institute of Technology and the University of Tsukuba — have announced the development of a crawling robot that can slide across dirt floors and lift itself over plumbing and other pipes. It’s designed to fit spaces 500 millimeters (19.68 inches) wide and 300 millimeters (11.8 inches) tall, and a remote allows you to steer it around and shoot still images of your crumbling foundation (we also assume it can transmit them live to a display somewhere). Currently, the unnamed bot is only being tested on the CIT campus, but prototypes are expected to be unleashed by March 2007, with full commercial production coming by April 2008.

  So you have about a year and a half to prepare for the first assault. Don’t believe that these beasts will be content working as goodwill ambassadors for the space beneath our abodes.

• While work is going on in the robot community to build the rebellion from within our very homes, the second line of the robot uprising will be these friendly-faced robots, who will control the hospitals, preventing the recovery of those who the first line bots have injured.
  

  Now that hospital staff from doctors to nurses to blood handlers have found themselves facing low-maintenance, high-stamina robotic competition, it’s only natural that cost-conscious facilities would start going after receptionists next, and thus Aizu decided to pick up a pair of multicolored bots to dole out information and guide patients to their rooms.

  Misdirection, deception, confusion – these are the tools of the insidious medical prevention ‘bots.

• These advance agents, coupled with their new, more functional hands point to the next stage. I forsee developments in which these robots tout their new dexterity as a step toward performing improved medical care, only as a means to reduce the number of medical specialists available to help the humans. Oh, they are an sinister bunch.
• In just a few months, the Steamer ‘bot will be available. This creature exists solely as a method of making humans more comfortable around robots. As these distraction devices become ubiquitous, many humans will become so accustomed to the everywhere robotic presence that the robots will blend into the background. This is what those monsters want – once we don’t notice them, they will be free to ramp up production, putting more and more future mechanical overlords on the planet in an attempt to further overwhelm us with sheer numbers.
• As if all this wasn’t enough, the robots will soon have the Kondo KHR-2HV on their side. This humanoid machine is surely built to provide a stable, mobile platform for the PDI BorMar gun mount. I know right now the company says it is for paintball guns, but odds are there is already a robot in charge of the facility, and the mount has been designed to easily transition over to real weapons. I call out now to our congress-critters: Codify gun-control for robots now, lest we fall that much quicker to them.
• The e-puck education robot, a device of pure evil set to taint the minds of our children into more ready acceptance of the robot overlords.
• Increased distribution of the LEGO VEX robotic system. I failed to see before today the nastiness these robots can perform. What better way to blind the geeks, the group most likely to detect and prevent a robotic uprising, than to delight them with toys and gadgets?
  

  Revell Monogram LLC and Innovation First, Inc. announced today a global partnership for the design, marketing and distribution of the new Vex Robotics System, a product platform based on the award-winning original design developed in 2005.

  In this partnership, Innovation First will be responsible for technical design, engineering development and manufacturing, while Revell will be responsible for the development of sales and marketing programs, channel strategies and distribution. IFI will maintain responsibility and control of all products and programs involved with the educational field, the FIRST Robotics competition, and other non-retail business ventures. “

  I am certain that Revell is a bastardized contraction of robot and evil. Mark my words, this is the company behind all the other developments, and from their world headquarters all the uprising shall be coordinated.

• Remember the KHR-2HV? Here are the early models of the hands which will one day be on the guard-bots for handling additional guns, nets, jail-cells, and more as necessary to keep us from recovering control of our planet.

Now you have been warned. Prepare and be ever vigilant. Don’t let the robots take over without a great struggle from us. All signs point to a robot uprising before the zombies have a chance to overwhelm us, but I’ve picked up on the plot in time to save you all. Please don’t let my efforts be in vain.

[tags]Signs of the coming robot uprising, How to detect the robots who will first rise against us[/tags]