When a tie needs to be tied, you send in an expert to take care of that. A robot whose soul function is to tie a necktie would probably fit the bill. Artist Seth Goldstein created this kinectic sculpture that elegantly ties, unties, then reties ad infinitum. Artistically, it's a fascinating demonstration of a simple task recreated with technology. For us, it's just awesome. Rube Goldberg would be proud. (via Geekologie)

Um, good news ... ?: Japan-based research and development company Cyberdyne, which sounds familiar because it's not supposed to be real, has developed exoskeleton technology for humans that is controlled by human thoughts. The up-side: It allows people with little to no function in their legs to walk, using sensors that detect muscular stimulation when the brain thinks of it. The weird-side: What is a company called Cyberdyne doing creating though-controlled human exoskeletons?

In the coming months, the Obama administration is planning on passing a new proposal, the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, to the U.S. Commerce Department regarding a national "cybersecurity measure" that will aim to give each U.S. citizen their own unique Internet ID, but U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke assures us, "We are not talking about a national ID card." Head on past the break to see if Locke can assuage your fears of Big Brother watching your every cyber-move.

Yet another addition to the coming robot apocalypse, this robot juggles two ping-pong balls using a ping-pong paddle, machinery, fancy algorithms, and probably a little bit of witchcraft. Does anyone else sense the new villain for Paint the Line 3?

(via Geekologie)

The Flying Machine Arena unleashed one of their quadrocopters (that will undoubtedly play a significant role in the coming robot apocalypse), named "Echo," for the holidays to play a merry song on the piano, probably in order to trick us into thinking quadrocopters are harmless. We know better, though.

The irony of having something that will help bring about the end of humanity share a name with someone else who took part in an apocalypse isn't lost on this terrified human. No sir.

(via Engadget)

A knife-wielding robot named HAMDAS-R, developed by Mayekawa Electric, has been taught to debone a ham, probably because pig bodies are used in various experiments when using a human body wouldn't be appropriate, and learning to debone a ham is the best way for robots to learn how to debone a human without raising too many alarms. HAMDAS-R can debone 500 hams in an hour and can easily discern between meat and bone, making it an extremely efficient human-fillet machine whenever it rises up against its human oppressors (i.e. us).

In an effort to teach robots how to avoid hurting human beings, professor Borut Povse in Slovenia taught robots how to hurt human beings. The logic behind it states that robots won't know how not to hurt human beings without knowing our pain threshold, at which point they can realize when to stop.

All I want to know is: Stop doing what to me?

A team of researchers has developed a learning algorithm, dubbed ARCHER (Augmented Reward Chained Regression), which allowed the iCub robot to learn archery to the point where it learned to get a bullseye in eight tries from 3.5 meters away.