Mouth: dry. Stomach: queasy. Head: racing. Not only is David X. Cohen the co-creator of one of my favorite shows of all time, he's a fellow Berkeley computer science alum, fellow nerd, and a tremendously funny guy. He also holds the dream job—comedy writer and creator of a successful Sci Fi TV show. After fully preparing myself by watching the latest Futurama movie—Into the Wild Green Yonder—I had hours worth of questions for the man, but he only had 30 minutes.

I had to get the most important question on everyone's minds out of the way: Will Futurama be coming back to Fox for a 6th season? Although Fox has indeed been making noises about the show's return, Cohen said DVD sales of the fourth movie may be a deciding factor in whether or not the project would be profitable. Basically, we need to go out and buy the DVD and Blu-ray if we want to bring Futurama back. Cohen also revealed that although there is a fifty-fifty chance of the show returning, he has yet to hear more concrete details about it from Fox—according to him, though, "No news is good news."

But how is the movie? In a word, good. In two words, very good. Into the Wild Green Yonder feels as if the Futurama writers used the first three movies as practice for getting back into the groove of writing Futurama episodes and was a final coda to the series. That's not to say that the first three movies were bad—they were just different.

If the Bender-focused, first half hour of the movie were its own episode, it would solidly land in any "top ten funniest Futurama episodes of all times" list, hands down. However, because the next 58 minutes covered some very familiar, classic Futurama-esque territory, it made Into the Green Yonder feel like the one movie—out of the four—that connected the most with the series. But why this movie, why now?

Bringing this movie back to the feel of the series, as Cohen revealed, was somewhat intentional. For each one of the Futurama movies, the writers decided that they would cover one major area of Sci Fi. The latest one, like the series itself, is more of a large space opera that comfortably cradles you back into the company of the Futurama characters you grew to love. Cohen also pointed out that a scene in the newest movie—the one where Leela is giving out space coordinates—is probably one of the "most hardcore things they've done" in terms of showing respect for actual science.

It's these science fans as well as the more hardcore viewers that would have noticed when Futurama's writers give shout outs to real-world physics in their jokes—such as when the Professor invoked the observer effect after a horse race. This ability to mix humor with scientific intelligence is one of the greatest benefits of having so many smart writers on staff. The other benefit? The ability to actually have an interesting vision of the future.

And it's this future that Fry's trying to save once again. This could be why the Green Yonder felt like it was slightly retreading old territory. If you've seen some of Fry's Nibblonian episodes, I'm sure you're familiar with the basic premise—we get it: Fry's special and he's the only one who can save the universe. But that's not to say there weren't some great moments to be had during these 88 minutes. This is more akin to strolling down a familiar street you haven't seen in years, examining which stores have changed and which haven't, and reveling in the fact that you're lucky enough to be back once more.

As the series draws to a (temporary) close, we wonder if we've learned the entirety of Fry's origin story and how he came to be in the year 3000. Not to worry, Cohen assures that he is not finished with that tale quite yet. When asked how much of it was left—after the Nibblonian saga was finished and the "Lars" adventure in the first DVD movie—he responded that there is "one sentence," uttered in the series that was left unaddressed. But it's up to superfans to figure out which sentence, not to mention which episode, he is referring to.

Because David X. Cohen helped create the entire world and backstory of Futurama, he's given a lot of thought to the future. Our future. Because he didn't want to go to extremes and create either a utopia or a dystopia, Futurama's universe is only about 50% realistic, according to Cohen. It does, however, borrow some ideas from our own world for both comedic and dramatic effect.

So what, if anything, in our real world future is David X. Cohen most afraid of? It isn't robots, surprisingly enough. It's stuff like nuclear bombs. Wars. And technology that kills people, fast. Things that—when taking the fact that Cohen grew up in the cold war and studied physics at Harvard into account—makes a lot of sense. But robots? Nope.

You would think that because Cohen is such a fan of robots, it would make sense that he'd own a Roomba. But he doesn't. He laughs that Matt Groening gives him shit for this fact (if anyone should have a Roomba, it would be Cohen).

Is there any Futurama left to tell? Cohen thinks so. Besides further expanding on Fry's origin story, he's got plans to make the Planet Express crew exhibits in an alien zoo (among other things). However, beyond little ideas here and there, what's currently occupying Cohen's mind is how to escape from the crazy corner they've painted themselves into at the end of Green Yonder. Given Fox's recent interest in bringing back the show for another season on television (50/50 chance!), it's one mess Cohen will likely have to bend his way out of.

As for the Roomba, if Cohen ever were to get one, he'd name it Browser.

We want you to get creative. We're talking about a whole pizza on the line with toppings of your choosing—this isn't something you can just go out and buy for yourself on a whim.

Your interpretation of robots turning on the human race can be as adolescent or apocalyptic as you'd like. Make us laugh or make us cry. Whatever. The only catches are that all submissions must be:

1. Original Non-Photoshopped Photos
2. Received by November 1st

Send all of your best shots to tips@giz with the headline "Robots Turn on Humans" for entry, along with your contact info. And good luck. We're really looking forward to seeing your work, puny humans.

[newscientist]

The team at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Federal Institute of Technology created the little experimental learning devices to work in groups and hunt for "food" targets nearby while avoiding "poison." Imagine their surprise when one generation of robots learned to signal lies about the poison, sending opponents to their doom.

The little wheeled robots had neural circuitry with about 30 "genes" that determine their behavior, and how much they react to light in the environment. The food sources charged up the robots' batteries while the poison drained them, and by using the genes of the most successful feeders in 50 successive generations, the team was hoping to select the fittest.

Three colonies of bots in the 50th generation learned to signal to other robots in the group when then found food or poison. But the fourth colony included lying cheats that signaled food when they found poison and then calmly rolled over to the real food while other robots went to their battery-death. Eerily wicked, to say the least. Saving the robots' honor, luckily, there were also a few "hero robots" that signalled danger and then rolled to their death to save the others.

Will technology like this make its way into consumer robots sometime? We kind of hope not: not sure I'd like to argue with a Roomba about whether it had or hadn't swept up that mess behind the sofa.
[Discover Magazine]

Inspired from a Futurama episode in which Bender did actually brew beer (Season 3, Episode 12: The Route of All Evil, for those of you keeping track at home), this contraption is a labor of love that's been under construction since this summer. It's really a work of art, looking like it stepped right off the screen. Inside its stomach is the brewing mechanisms and in its head is a functioning computer that plays Bender sayings on command. It even features a cigar that lights up thanks to a handy pen light/felt contraption. And, of course, it brews beer in its belly, which makes it that much better. Totally worth six months of work if you ask me. Be sure to check out the website to see all the detail that went into making Beer Brewing Bender a reality. [Project page]

"What's the secret of time travel doing on Fry's ass?"
"It was bound to be somewhere." [via digg]

I think he's got Pina Cola in his backpack. We all know my thoughts on DIY (not to mention my abilities), but honestly, Promet, I could do better than this.

And if a bad workman blames his tools, does a bad robot blame his overlord? – Ad Dugdale

Say hello to Kyrre Glette, Jim Tørrenson, Jeff Hawkins and one of your future robot overlords. The first three have developed two different ways to create independent machines. The fourth is just looking to destroy you.

Glette and Tørrenson, from Oslo University, have come up with what could be the next generation of hardware—machines that evolve on their own. This means that, rather than having to install new software to update the machine, the evolving hardware inside changes in order to better complete whatever task needs doing. How the hell is this done? Well, while I would trap underpaid little people inside the machine, apparently this is all about pairing up genes in the hardware to find the design that is most effective to solve a specific problem.

This approach avoids the limitations that efforts at artificial intelligence have had so far—precisely the ones that Hawkins claims to have smashed with his new venture, Numenta, which has created software that mimics the human brain. Or so he says.

More on how these two technologies compare to each other, right after the jump.

The Norwegians' first step in 2004 was to make Henriette, a robot chicken that used evolution software in order to learn how to walk (you can try a program that does precisely this in your PC or Mac here). Rather than trying to comprehend the world and create solutions through AI, the evolution hardware tries random variations starting from a seed, which are measured against the problem in order to select the better options. Following the best paths, the hardware reaches an optimum solution for a very specific problem.

In this case, they want to make a robot that will evolve to install underwater oil pipes on its own at 2,000-meter depths, where you either need miles of cable or echo signals to convey orders to the machine, which means long delays between command and execution.

Until one day they finally rise from the seas to command and execute us, that is.

Hawkins' Numenta solution, on the other hand, tries to actually make a machine think as a human brain, feeding it with sensorial information that the artificial intelligence will use to build a model of what surrounds it. This new AI concept, developed after Hawkins had one too many beers with the neuroscientists from his nonprofit Redwood Neuroscience Institute, tries to identify elements, establish relations between them, learn from how things work and, just like a child, predict outcomes based on this understanding of the world.

So, to summarize, here's the drill:

Step 1. The thing, probably to be called SkySomething or HAL-whatever, understands the world.
Step 2. Someone gives it the keys to the ICBMs.
Step 3. The thing destroys the world in a massive nuclear attack.
Step 4 (optional). Someone sends somebody else back in time to smack those two crazy Norwegians and that Jeff dude, who apparently don't see enough sci-fi movies, and try to save the planet.

As you can see, both efforts look to solve the same problems, as if we didn't have enough already.–Ad Dugdale & Jesus Diaz

First Hardware to go through Evolution Developed [Bits of News via Dizzy Thinks]
Project page [Oslo University]
The Thinking Machine [Wired]

If these test work—which they look like they do, the monkeys are feeding themselves successfully—you too can lop off your own arm, stroll into the emergency room, and feel confident that they'll replace your missing appendage with the robotic equivalent. No wait! We mean in a couple of years! – Jason Chen

MOnkey Controls Robotic Arm With Mind [Random Good Stuff]