Public service announcement: Skynet is gearing up.

[Kaludneisucks]

Upcoming Military Robot Could Feed on Dead Bodies - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News - FOXNews.com

Thought you should know.

[zoobernut]

Do you mean SkyNET? Because I have no idea what Skylab is.

[Dimmauk]

EATR is an awesome name.

[Wintermute]

A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.

Robotic Technology Inc.'s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that's right, "EATR" — "can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable," reads the company's Web site.

That "biomass" and "other organically-based energy sources" wouldn't necessarily be limited to plant material — animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they'd be plentiful in a war zone.

It's a Steampunk Zombie!? Awesome.

[Kaludneisucks]

yeah sky net, its early mod fix b4 everyone flames me.. oh well.. anyhow, back to our reg. sch. pogrom.

[zoobernut]

It's a Steampunk Zombie!? Awesome.

That is exactly what I thought too. Looks really interesting. The thing must be huge or have saws in order to be able to gobble up bodies and stuff.

[Khamsin]

Does the biomass it consumes have to be dead first? Or does it just make it easier...

Hey, if they're gonna haul it into a warzone, may as well feed it live enemies, too.

[Jefe]

I'm intrigued to find out how this maquina is going to figure out if an organism is in fact dead. Maybe it will check the temperature around a given radius and compare it to that of other organisms? OR something related to the levels of CO, movement, noise, etc. around...

/terminator theme

[Rammses]

Skylab is a module on the ISS, no?

[Xenophobe]

Skylab is a module on the ISS, no?

Skylab was the first U.S. space station

Skylab - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Kaludneisucks]

That ^

Like i said its early, and i'm old..

[zoobernut]

Oh right I completely forgot about Skylab. Duh. Even though Skylab was before my time I had an elementary school teacher that used to talk about it and the space program in general all the time.

I was correct though in my earlier assessment that Skynet was the intended title, since the article is about robots eating humans, kinda.

[The Stig]

The fact SCC is cancelled and the fact it's on Fox news....

/rage

[miokomioko]

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...1160&type=card

[Wintermute]

The fact SCC is cancelled and the fact it's on Fox news....

/rage

It's also on Wired and engadget.
Latter has a wee pic of all the robot unit.

There's also the Project Homepage.

[Kuya]

Since this pretty much throws ethics out the window, i'm guessing this is just fluff news.

[Wintermute]

Since this pretty much throws ethics out the window, i'm guessing this is just fluff news.

I want these things on the market for consumer use now.

I'd buy a lawn then get one of these to cut it and program it to chew up those kids who always piss me off if they come withing a certain radius of my house.

"Stay off my goddamn lawn!"
"Or what?"
"My lawnmower will eat you."

Homicidal roombas too, teach people to shit up my place.

[Jer]

The people writing the article may have just thrown in dead bodies because it would technically be possible. Can you imagine the outcry that would happen if it actually went out and started gobbling soldier's remains for gas?

[Vuitton]

"Sorry, ma'm, your son was fatally injured while deployed."

"I see. When will his body be returned for the funeral?"

"Sorry, ma'm, one of our robots ate him to recharge its battery after it confused him for an enemy combatant due to his face being blown off and not identiable as an American."

"FFFFFFFUUUUUUUU!!!!!!"

[Avanarius]

I love how this article was written.... "and EVEN HUMAN BODIES!"....."and EVEN A MOBILE GUNSHIP".....