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  And apparently there's nothing you can do about it : The new devices, which also include a GPS tracker for stolen cars and a cone-shaped security robot, will be rolled out in a manner that is “transparent, consistent and always done in close collaboration with the people we serve,” said police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, who joined Mayor Eric Adams and other officials at a Times Square press conference where the security robot and the mechanical canine nicknamed Digidog were displayed. “Digidog is out of the pound,” said Adams, a Democrat and former police officer. “Digidog is now part of the toolkit that we are using.” The city’s first robot police dog was leased in 2020 by Adams’ predecessor, former Mayor Bill de Blasio, but the city’s contract for the device was cut short after critics derided it as creepy and dystopian. Adams said he won’t bow to anti-robot dog pressure. "A few loud people were opposed to it and we took a step back,” the mayor said. “That is not how ...

Fortunately, the idea is not universally popular...yet: The proliferation of police robots has sparked pushback from civilians, elected officials, and civil rights groups alike. In 2021, residents and local politicians castigated the New York Police Department for its use of a so-called “Digidog”—an unarmed, four-legged, robotic “dog” built by Boston Dynamics—after footage of its deployment in two separate incidents went viral. The city has since canceled a $94,000 contract to lease the robo-dog. While Boston Dynamics was one of multiple companies that signed an open letter last week condemning the use of armed robots, other companies haven’t drawn such a line in the sand. As TechCrunch noted this week, a Philadelphia company named Ghost Robotics sells its products to the U.S. military and seems totally fine with the strapping of rifles to its robo-dogs. On Monday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital privacy nonprofit, issued a scathing statement slamming the San Franc...

Via the Chive . Hands down better than the debacle know as Transformers 2 .

A robot can perform a heterosexual ceremony in Japan , and America still has a problem allowing gays and lesbians to get hitched?

We're building robots that learn like children . Why don't we use our resources in a better fashion like, say, educating our children? These are the events we'll look back on and say, "What the hell were we thinking?" when we're fighting the Great Metal War of 2157.

We have singing robots now.