In a scene that conjures up visions of Terminator, the US Airforce have revealed the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s refueller will be an automatron. Not only is it another job gone by the wayside (which we could do with more of in the current climate) but also it makes the perfect inside job for a takeover.

Picture it, when the Asimos have massed on the Eastern border of Europe and are preparing for attack – the F-35’s are taken out of their hangers with tactical nukes onboard. The robots come to refuel them – ah but do they? Moments after takeoff, they run out of fuel and it’s game over for humanity.

I can see it, it will happen, and you’ll all be sorry when it does if you don’t listen now! OK – taking a step back from the paranoia end of the world stance – I’m not sure if trusting a robot to refuel a plane is a good idea. Fuel + sparks from robot’s innards = BOOM! It’s a simple formula..

A festive cartoon for you all, from wetherobots.com!

Portsmouth, UK, is the first local authority to install a system that can detect suspicious, and possibly criminal behaviour. Dubbed “Smart” CCTV, the system’s software looks for suspicious acts and alerts its human operators if it spots anything.

I guess the system, as long as it’s backed up by people, is a good idea – after all it’s doing nothing different than the operators did before – other than allowing them to work more efficiently. Of course you can argue one way or the other if CCTV generally is a good idea, from a privacy standpoint. You can’t dispute the facts of fallen crime rates where they are used though. Reported by the BBC, the system is on trial initially pending review by Portsmouth Council.

This reminds me of something from Terminator, as the machines rise to take over the earth with Skynet – only scarier. It just shows you though that reality can be stranger than fiction sometimes..

OK, well it’s a way to show off this amazing piece of technology, but what I really wanted to see was it rescuing people from burning buildings, or fighting acid-spitting extra terrestrials – not bench pressing 50kgs!

Created by Raytheon, a military hardware specialist, the Sarcos Exoskeleton fits around a human to augment his or her basic functions. It’s able to walk, jog, work out or punch people (apparently) so all-round it looks a great idea. What amazes me is how quickly and fluidly it reacts to movements from the person strapped into it. Have a look at the video with a small interview with one of the creators, below:

Pushing around the internetz, minding my own business, I fell upon an old Gizmodo article of a year ago about a cat that you can buy, from Japan. No ordinary cat, no, but a robotic electrocute your-family-and-take-over-the-house sort of kitty. Scarily realistic, you would wonder if children would be able to sleep at night after seeing this thing for more than 5 minutes.. But then you find out, what’s even stranger is that this metallic feline is aimed at people that can’t own animals, for whatever reason. Kill it I say, and save the free world.

Read all of this article…

UK Engineering at it’s finest, and also just down the road from where I live, Southampton University have developed a submarine to explore the undersea world automatically.

Capable of diving to depths of 6km, and a range of 1000km, the AutoSub6000 will be primarily exploring undersea volcanoes. It amazes me how these boffins can set up an undersea vehicle, program it like an expensive BigTrak, and send it on it’s way to do it’s job – completely without human intervention. For a full list of specs, for the terminally geeky, download the pdf.

US Robots posted in Iraq apparently tried to take out their human counterparts, The Register revealed today. It appears that the robots, which had a fitted M249 (usually used by soldiers to suppress fire) for some unknown reason began to train their fire on the soldiers they were there to protect. A high ranking official said, “The gun started moving when it was not intended to move.”

So all this talk of robotic murder led me to a question: What other steps have robots made to try to kill mankind?

It didn’t take me long before I found a report on Slashdot of a Robot lawnmower killing a Danish man. The “Dvorak Spider” didn’t kill him in the obvious way, by slicing him into small human chunks, instead it hurled itself off of a cliff to crush the hapless bacon lover below.

And then I re-stumbled across the recent news of a man in Australia who had built his own suicide-bot to fire a handgun into his head. But then the only witness was the robot.. Maybe the robot faked the suicide note?

Finally, after blowing the dust off of the internet, it appears as early as 1979 a robot had taken out a human with intricate precision. Of course it was made to look like an accident. According to this Wikipedia article, the workers at a Ford factory had overridden the safety features on the robot. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t take Isaac Asimov seriously.

So it’s been on the cards for a long time, according to the evidence. Robots have been systematically taking humans out – in relative quiet – for the last 30 years. Robots are being used more and more to make our lives “easier” so we will eventually get to a point when we’re surrounded. As it stands now there are robots that can park your car, robots to babysit your children or Japanese robots trained to trick you into thinking they are humans. And then there’s the small child-like Asimo. At what point will the authorities actually open their eyes to what’s going on around us?

Microsoft, not happy with just dominating the OS market, are all set to dominate the world of robotics with their newly previewed version of “Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008″ today.

Originally released in 2006, and aimed at the hobbyist, the Studio was an answer to a community of robotics developers that needed a good environment to work in. The studio enables developers to use simulations and real connectivity interchangeably. The upshot of this is that you don’t need the hardware to get into robotics, the software can simulate your hard work which will behave exactly like it’s real-world counterpart. The new version has the backing of over 50 companies, and has an improved interface, some performance tweaks and some new tools to help in the design process.

Unfortunately the latest version isn’t available for general consumption just yet, as it’s “Community Technology Preview” status, but if you feel like it’s something you want to get into, or even just to take a look at, you can download the current version of the software from this website – free for personal use. And if it’s something you find you have a knack for, why not take part in the RoboChamps competition, which opens on April 21st?