Military tests rocket-powered bionic arm

A rocket-powered bionic arm has been successfully developed and tested by a team of mechanical engineers at Vanderbilt University as part of a $30 million military program to develop advanced prosthetic devices for next generation of super-soldiers.The mechanical arm mechanical arm with a miniature rocket motor can lift (curl) about 20 to 25 pounds, three [...]

Robot Medic Will Deploy by 2009, according to DARPATech

 One of the first announcements at this year’s three-day DARPATech conference is going to be hard to top: the first portable self-contained surgical robot will be deployed in the next two years. Brett Giroir, director of the research agency’s Defense Sciences Office also announced that the system, called Trauma Pod, has successfully “treated” a mannequin during a test, [...]

Can cyborg moths bring down terrorists?

At some point in the not too distant future, a moth will take flight in the hills of northern Pakistan, and flap towards a suspected terrorist training camp.
But this will be no ordinary moth. Inside it will be a computer chip that was implanted when the creature was still a pupa, in the cocoon, meaning that [...]

New Laws of Robotics proposed for US kill-bots

A new set of laws has been proposed to govern operations by killer robots. The ideas were floated by John S Canning, an engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Centre, Dahlgren Division – an American weapons-research and test establishment. Mr Canning’s “Concept of Operations for Armed Autonomous Systems” presentation can be downloaded here (pdf). Read  the article at The [...]

Robot wars

WAR is expensive and it is bloody. That is why America’s Department of Defence wants to replace a third of its armed vehicles and weaponry with robots by 2015. Such a change would save money, as robots are usually cheaper to replace than people. As important for the generals, it would make waging war less [...]