Posts tagged “robotics”

In the late 1970s, Quasar Industries fooled the public with a fake household robot that was actually just a guy in the crowd with a wire up his sleeve. More interesting: the resulting debate on ARPANET became the internet's first free speech controversy.

A real, physical Etch-A-Sketch controlled by a robot and viewable via webcam. Not a simulation. An actual Etch-A-Sketch. The internet is amazing.

Small walking dinosaur robots are inspiring future scientists, apparently. Also discovered The Skills Market, a surprisingly well-designed IT recruitment site with neat supply-demand graphs for skills. Worth checking out if you're job hunting. Which I am, along with searching for somewhere to live this summer.

Roundup of interesting links: media consolidation is scary but maybe not that bad, robot-eels are scarier, the dot-com crash is overhyped just like the boom was, actual layoffs are minimal and tech jobs remain plentiful. Invest now while stocks are undervalued. Also, websites desperately need phone-bill micropayments.

I'm excited about plastic transistors and flexible displays - I want a flat-screen t-shirt display. Also cool: the ISS robot arm that walks itself around the station by flipping end-over-end between power sockets. Check Slashdot yourself for anything else.