Technology News
The Race Towards Robotics
April 18, 2002 08:30 CDT
Domestic robots have long been in the making, but who will emerge as the Bill Gates of robotization? Evolution Robotics in California recently stepped forward. They plan to release an operating system late this year that will bring household robots one giant step closer to reality.
[...]

Robots Are Us: The Mystical Side of Science (and Fiction)
Jeremy Smith, AlterNet - April 12, 2002
[...]
Robots are no longer science fiction metaphors or wish-fulfillment fantasies. According to the United Nations' World Robotics 2001 survey, there are at least 750,000 units in operation around the world building cars, vacuuming floors, and mowing lawns. These are automated laborsaving devices, more like washing machines than androids. Even the most entertaining and experimental robots today are little more than electrical marionettes -- the most autonomous are more akin to insects than to mammals. But governments and corporations are spending billions of dollars each year researching ways to mimic human motion and the human mind with steel and silicon, and they're getting results.
[...]