If you were building a mechanical beast, what would it be? The Spectre staff have long dreamed of owning a giant robot wooly mammoth to ride to work on, crushing city bankers beneath our hairy hooves (or whatever it is Mammoths have for feet), perhaps you’d like a ruddy great Dinosaur? Or a terrible Spider? It seems however, that Zoids are not to be, as the best researchers can come up with today is a rat. That’s right, the mouse’s Spiv cousin has been granted metal form today, and also limited AI!
Human Brains, what with all that higher cognitive ability, are a bit too hard to replicate, but Rats have learning abilities on a par with insects, and rather than create an army of unstoppable steel locusts, PsikHarpax, pictured above, is the world’s first learning robot.
‘The rat is the animal that scientists know best, and the structure of its brain is similar to that of humans,’ says Steve Nguyen, a doctoral student at ISIR who created PsikHarpax (The name comes from a mythical Rat-God).
So, a robot who can look for food, avoid danger and navigate autonomously. Not to mention knaw through it’s own wiring and carry some sort of cyber-bubonic plague.
Sure it’s a dorky headline, but the fact is that ES loves giant robot combat more than our own mothers, and this year everyone’s fave Mecha saga hits the big three-o. And in Japan they take this kind of thing seriously. So it is that in the city of Odaiba this amazing, 18-metre tall full size Mobile Suit is going up, which, when completed, will shoot ‘mist and lasers’ and move it’s head, fully ready to butt any Zentraidi invaders into submission.
Ever fancied walking like a horse? No, us either, but some arty-farty equestriphile obviously did, and the result is..stupid. But kinda cool, we’ll all be wearing these on the high street next year.
Remember the Headmasters? They were one of the early spin-offs that eventually spelled death, then obscurity, then animalizers-or-whatever-they’re-called for the once mighty Transformers. Now however, it seems that the technology to upgrade robots using human thought is here from an unlikely source: Honda.
You’ve all seen their Asimo robot wandering up and down and bumping into things, and while sophisticated, generally making Honda’s dream of human-beating football squadroids looking pretty far fetched. Now however, it seems our Nipponese friends have found a way round this-electroencephalography. That’s a mind readin’ robo dude to you folks.
Wired up like this Asimo imitates the thoughts of his controller in real time, meaning if they toughen the little guy up a little he’d be great for mining, rescue, and the ever popular taking on Robocop in a fistfight. Also, look at the picture above. Now look at that guy’s helmet. Now imagine it parked in orbit above Alderaan. That can’t be good can it?
Take an all terrain quadraped robot that can withstand being kicked. And add horns. Now you have something that can do serious damage. Just gotta get the speed up. Then it’s scary.
