Gizmodo: robot overlords

Korea's Massive 364-Foot Taekwon V Statue Will Crush Puny Humans

Danny Allen — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 07:45:55 EDT

Holy crap! So Japan builds giant Gundam and Testsujin statues (59 and 60-feet, respectively), now Korea is building this freakin' huge Taekwon V (Voltar the Invincible) replica that will be more than twice the height of the Statue of Liberty.

Taekwon V will be the center-piece of Robot Land, a nearly $600 million dollar development of entertainment areas, exhibition halls, research centers and businesses that we've mentioned in the past. Though it broke ground long before the Japanese projects, many believe Korea's Taekwon V cartoons copied Japan's Mazinger Z in the first place. Reow.

The park is set to open to the public in 2012, with full access starting in 2013. And yes, that's a monorail whizzing past Taekwon V's ankles. Awesome. [Robot Land (translated) via Plastic Pals]

Rolly Orchestrates Aibo Chorus of Doom

Elaine Chow — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 02:00:00 EST

Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce us to the real enemy. You thought your robot overlords would resemble Skynet? No, my friend. What you should be fearing is this: obedient, discontinued machine puppies. [Robot.Impress]

Biobots Borrow Design from Millions of Years of Evolution

Charlie White — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:24:34 EST

When designing our future robot overlords, scientists are borrowing ideas that have withstood the test of time over millions of years of evolution (or seven days of creation, depending on your point of view). This video from New Scientist shows how animals are inspiring robotics design, as evidenced by these robotic fish, salamanders, segmented wormlike beings, and even a few mini-bots that don't mind slumming it with a bunch of cockroaches. We're thinking the next step will be to make the robots slimier and more slithery, completing the aesthetic link to their animalistic forebears. Attach a few weapons, equip them with menacing voices, and they'll be good for eliminating a few useless carbon-based biological units. [New Scientist, via Danger Room]

Metal Storm Robot Weapon Fills the Air With Lead, Shooting Anything That Moves

Charlie White — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:19:07 EST

Here's a fearsome weapon from Australia that's not brand new but is now being considered for deployment by the US military: a kick-ass machine gun called Metal Storm. It's an Area Denial Weapon System (ADWS) that literally fills the air with lead without the need of a human operator.

The scariest part is that when you set this monster on auto, it can automagically fire 6000 rounds per minute at anything that moves. In this video after the jump, firing so many rounds so quickly sounds like a quick bark of a buzz saw. Imagine one of these in each hand of our upcoming robot overlords:

Come to think of it, I could use one of these guns in Gears of War against my battle-hardened and virtually unstoppable Gizmodo colleagues. – Charlie White

Metal Storm Area Denial Weapon System creates an iron curtain of bullets [Newlaunches]