This Week In Bots: Dino Robots, Fish Robots, And The Future Of Self-Driving Cars

Let's do the weekly electric boogaloo through a menagerie of mechanical wonderthings. No humans required.

Bot Vid: Truss-Climber

Cornell boffins have put together an autonomous truss-climbing robot. It's not something you'll find navigating the inner clothing of William Shatner, instead being a demonstration of a machine that can climb up structures like scaffolding and actually reconfigure it as it goes. In the future swarms of robots like this may be useful for actually building the structure of habitable buildings. 

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Bot Vid: Robo Fish

Scientists from the University of Montpellier and the Polytechnic Institute of New York have developed upon earlier research into swimming a robot fish among real ones, and discovered that they can actually interact with the school, influencing its behavior as their robot swims. The golden shiners actually seem to follow the larger robo fish, instead of using it as mere cover. Interesting biologically speaking, the technology has some very high-minded ultimate uses--like automatically steering fish away from the sites of sea-borne human disasters like oil spills.

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Bot Vid: Drone Flights For Filming

As lawsuits develop seemingly at the same pace as the technology, filming from drone robots is becoming more common for people other than the military. As TechNewsDaily notes, there's some remarkable footage available from these endeavors, such as the aerial footage below--taken in Tallinn in Estonia this month during an anti-ACTA protest. The videos offer unique views on news events, and it won't be long before they start showing up in iReports on CNN, particularly if citizen journalists in war-torn locations start to use the tech.

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Bot News

Drexel Uni shows off seven humanoid robots. At a culmination of years of planning, Drexel University this week showed off all seven of its Korean HUBO androids on stage--in what the university is calling a first of its kind event. The droids...

[Source: Fast Company]

Comic Book Bites: Bleach manga to become movie, Colin Donnell is Merlyn in TV's Arrow

JAPANESE manga series Bleach is to be turned into a live-action feature film by Get Smart director Peter Segal.

According to Variety, Segal will produce and possibly direct the project for Warner Bros, while Wrath of the Titans scribe Dan Mazeau is on script duties.

Writer-illustrator Tite Kubo's hit comic (as seen in artwork above) was also adapted into anime in the form of a TV series and four films. It follows the adventures of a teenager called Ichigo who is transformed into a Soul Reaper and must fight evil spirits and guide souls to the afterlife.

DC's Green Arrow, meanwhile, is heading back to television. Justin Hartley played the vigilante in Smallville but this time the character is getting his own show, called Arrow and starring Stephen Amell as 27-year-old billionaire Oliver Queen and his arrow-slinging alter-ego. Oliver is shipwrecked on a South China Sea island for five years and returns to town as a master bowman who is determined to make a difference.

Colin Donnell (pictured), best known from airline-based series Pan Am, has now joined the cast as Oliver's rich, smooth, party-loving best friend Tommy Merlyn. The character is based on comic book arch-rival Merlyn, a villain considered to be the world's best archer, so it's likely Tommy will go to the dark side.

Already on board are Katie Cassidy as attorney Dinah 'Laurel' Lance, Willa Holland as Oliver's sister Thea Queen, Susanna Thompson as mother Moira Queen, David Ramsey as Oliver's chauffeur and bodyguard John Diggle (a nod to comics writer Andy Diggle) and Brian Markinson as Adam Hunt. We're all praying it turns out better than NBC's ill-conceived attempt at a new Wonder Woman series.

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[Source: Coventry Telegraph - The Geek Files]

Find Parking Now

Have you ever driven around for what seems like hours looking for a parking spot? Frustrating to the supreme and a wicked one on the road rage - isn't it? A solution to parking woes has been invented by a company called Streetline, Parker is a technology that interfaces your phone and metered parking space, and lets you know of all available parking spots. Sounds pretty wild right? Parker is very easy to use, the interface is a simple inexpansive phone app that maps the location of vacant parking meters in the vicinity for the driver. Other compamies have jumped on the bandwagon and are marketing similar products, and car companies are investing big bucks into R&D for such products. Photo Getty Images

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[Source: About.com]

The FP - Trailer

In a dystopian future, a relentless turf war rages. Two rival gangs feud for control of rural wasteland Frazier Park ('The FP') in the deadly arena of competitive dance-fight video game "Beat-Beat Revelation." After hometown hero BTRO is slain on the dance platform by thug leader L Dubba E, his protege younger brother JTRO (Jason Trost) goes into isolation, vowing never to duel again. One year later, The FP is in ruins, and JTRO must find the courage to return and restore order in a ruthless battle for revenge that can only leave one man dancing. From the producers of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and featuring narration by James Remar (THE WARRIORS), THE FP is a fury of fierce footwork, triumphant montages and neon street wear that Moviefone calls "a rare ready-made cult hit."
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[Source: Latest Movie Trailers]

Apple And Foxconn's Ethics Hit Your Gadget Prices

Last week Foxconn pushed its starting salaries up from 900 yuan ($143) to 1,800 yuan per month, the latest and biggest in wage upticks that began in 2010. Foxconn did this for one main reason: international attention focused on the firm and associated ethical questions surrounding its treatment of workers. The lens through which this attention was focused bears just one name--Apple--because the iPhone seller is one of the biggest companies in the world, and has recently made very bold steps to improve worker conditions. But Foxconn is actually a key supplier for a laundry list of international electronics firms, from Samsung to numerous household American names. Now two of those firms, tech giants HP and Dell, have warned that rising costs in their Chinese supply chain may result in increased in-store prices for their wares.

Just think about that for a minute, let it simmer in your mind. While it's cooking, here're a few spicy facts to add to the flavor.

1. Apple, facing enormous criticism about unfair treatment of workers in its supply chain--who technically work for a totally different company, in a different nation with a vastly different social and economic background--has tried to improve the situation, and has admitted errors publicly.

2. Foxconn faced controversy in the past over its supposed suicide problem. As a harsh statistic it's worth pointing out its actually much lower than the Chinese average. Infer from this what you like about worker conditions. And remember that many potential employees are battling to work at Foxconn compared to its competitors.

3. In early 2011 it was noted that China already had the third highest labor costs in the emerging Asian economies.

4. China's work ethics, worker conditions, and economic situation are radically different than those in the U.S., influenced by Chinese politics, history, local economic effects, laws, social habits, and tradition.

5. Raw global economics and relative currency values mean that the local equivalen...

[Source: Fast Company]

Promo art for CHIN MUSIC by Steve Niles and Tony Harris

One of the new books announced at the Image Expo, CHIN MUSIC, by Steve Niles and Tony Harris, via.
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[Source: The Beat]

Sneak peekers say Avengers is good, just not 'cinematic' enough

Sneak peekers say Avengers is good, just not 'cinematic' enough
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[Source: Blastr Atom Feed]