Bryan describes his paintings as, "a cosmic stage for human activity. I'm in the audience like a court reporter taking notes with my sketchbook and brushes, playing the critic, here to observe and make comment." My personal favorites, next to the robot ladies, are the "plein air" pieces.

[Mark Bryan]

Rosie the Robot Maid: If you ask us, everyone should want their very own Rosie having seen what she does for The Jetsons. After all, she cooks, she cleans, she calls you "Mr [Whatever the initial of your last name is]," and all while wearing a frilly apron - What could be better? Sure, she later killed George Jetson in a parody of I, Robot, but you can overlook that when you taste how good her chicken is.

HERBIE, the Robot Nanny: He may have been created because animators couldn't use the Human Torch (either due to rights issues or a fear of children setting themselves on fire in a misguided attempt at hero-emulation, depending on who you listen to), but that doesn't stop HERBIE - or Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-type, Integrated Electronics, if you're being formal - from being our favorite flying sarcastic nanny-bot that consistently fails to keep Franklin Richards out of trouble on a regular basis. For bonus points, he also inspired The Venture Bros.' HELPeR, and that alone earns him a spot on this (spotless) hall of fame.

R2-D2: And talking of sarcastic robots, Star Wars' true star deserves his day in the sun as well. Constantly seen as the comedic foil of the more English-speaking C3-PO, R2 may be a fan-favorite, but still never really gets his due as an all-round entertainer, whether it's being used as a floating Jedi-training device, lock-breaker or just plain drinks server, as on Jabba's barge. If there's something that this little droid can't do - aside from speak in any intelligible language - then we'd like to see it.

Kryten: Red Dwarf's Canadian-accented robo-butler brought more than the ability to dust to the series when he arrived in the show's third season; he also brought a ridiculous amount of common sense. So much so that it's easy to overlook his inability to say the word "smeghead," that whole exploding head thing, and his various crotch attachments that make vacuuming a lot more fun.

Bender: While I'll give you that the benefits of having your very own steel bending robot may not be immediately obvious - or, even that obvious after a couple of moments of thought, for that matter - it's the other attributes of Bender Bending Rodríguez that make him a must-have for every home. Who hasn't wanted a kleptomaniac chef (although we'd suggest that you hide the salt before letting him in the kitchen) with a talent for folk music and seemingly unlimited storage space in his chest cavity? And, if you are that person, then I'd like to suggest that you get your head checked. You can keep your other, respectful robot servants; Gruff and multi-tasking is the way of our worker droid future, thanks very much.

Proyas told fans at Comic-Con that his main reason for staying away from the Fantastic Four spin-off was who was making it, and he repeated that to MTV:

[I]t’s a Fox picture, [a]nd I’m determined never to work with them ever again because of my experience on ‘I,Robot.’

But that's not the only reason he's turning the project down, it seems. Another reason was the crappiness of the Surfer's first appearance, in Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer:

It’s like the origin of Silver Surfer was in that movie, and I’m going, ‘This is such a f–king great story, why throw it away?’ ...I think they messed it up.

You and the rest of the cinema-going public, Alex. Would it really have killed them to give us a giant man with a huge purple helmet instead of the flashing storm thing? ...Wait. I should probably rephrase that.

Does this mean that Proyas is going to stay away from superhero movies from now on? Perhaps, he says:

You know, there aren’t that many left. Silver Surfer would have been something I would have loved to have done. He’s one of the last cool ones left, really.

Dude, you did The Crow; I think you've done enough. In more ways than one.

Alex Proyas Explains Chilly Fox Relationship Means He’ll Never Direct Silver Surfer Movie [Splash Page]

The new line sets up a brand-new setting for the character. According to the publicity for the toys,

The historic 35th line of SPAWN action figures makes the leap to the year 3047, when a heroic team of robot warriors fights to defend Earth from the unstoppable force of the villainous Mechanoid Army.

Mechanoid Army? 3047? What's that got to do with Martin Sheen overacting like crazy, that's what I want to know. Still, at least they look cool, which is probably the main thing.

Spawn Series 35: Robot Wars [Spawn.com]

This footage was taken with someone's video camera, so it's obviously not perfect, but it is the only gameplay footage available of Champions Online. Cryptic has indicated that this demo represents a game still in development - the UI in particular is a work in progress. The robot cowboys are pretty cool, though. They totally ripped off Wonder Woman's golden lasso. Maybe they're riding invisible horses?

Image by: Cryptic.

Four Champions Online gameplay videos surface. [Massively]

Since Proyas helmed I, Robot, which took a few slight liberties with the Isaac Asimov source material, you can expect a certain amount of creative license with Jonathan Hoag, which Heinlein wrote in 1942 under a pseudonym, John Riverside. But Proyas expresses reverence for the source material, in a Hollywood Reporter article:

"I read this story as a kid, and it really stayed with me," Proyas said. "It's part of my creative DNA."

Here's how someone on Amazon summarizes it:

Mr. Hoag has a problem: in the evenings he finds a curious reddish residue under his fingernails, and no memory of what he was doing during the day to get that residue. So he hires a husband-and-wife team of detectives to follow him around and find out what is really going on. The trail leads to non-existent 13th floors, some very shadowy characters who are part of the Order of the Bird, and a conclusion that reality really isn't what we think it is. Some good suspense, reasonable characterization, but the final answer that Heinlein presents may leave you feeling a little let down, and I had difficulty believing in the scenario.

The novella appears to be out of print, but copies of a collected edition are available on Amazon for as little as 14 cents, plus shipping. According to blogger Chris Perridas, Heinlein wrote the story in a hurry to raise money for his wife's gall bladder operation. [Hollywood Reporter]

Bikini FemBot is one of a series of robots designed by Etsy's Spaceboyjordo, each of which promises to

[aid] in safety & protection [and help] prevent ninjas, cowboys, aliens, pirates, dogs w/ sweaters, creepy uncles, and emo kids from entering your zone by using its robot skillz. For best results place robot on shelf facing a window and/or door of your zone. See results instantly. In case of detached limb during combat, acquire a hot glue servicing mechanism device and reattach where necessary. Sometimes robot may become fierce. Batteries not included, nor necessary. Robot personalities may vary. See a physician if complications occur.

Each of the robots are hand-made and one-of-a-kind; my favorite may be Yoshi, the Mega Robot. There's just something about his bright-green awesomeness that gets to me every time I look at him.

Holla at dem Bots yo! [Etsy]

The cause of the argument is a new teaching tool being used in around 200 schools nationwide in the UK - Red the Robot. Red is a toy created to help young children to read and learn phonics, but that doesn't necessarily mean that British teachers are glad for the help:

Academics at the [British] Institute of Education who undertook an evaluation in three schools concluded that the robot "makes learning fun" where used appropriately. Children seemed to love it but teachers were "less inclined" to allow the robot to take the whole class. Dylan Wiliam, acting head of the institute, says: "The research on the use of such technology shows that when it is well-designed it can actually be better than teaching even by the best teachers." ...But some child experts expressed concern. Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood, said: "Robots can't teach. The only effective teaching is by breathing, living teachers who can look a pupil in the eye and respond to them."

The Guardian newspaper sat in on a class being conducted by Red, and wasn't too impressed:

Red is having a bad day. Sometimes he forgets which book he's reading. Sometimes his mind drifts and he goes quiet in the middle of one of the exercises, which are designed to be perfectly in tune with what Charlie and Roxy are learning at school.

Usually there would be a teacher or assistant to sort the problems out but we all look at the robot a bit disappointedly.

"I'm bored," declares Charlie.

What's good about Red? "He's red," says Roxy.

What's bad about Red? "He doesn't work," says Charlie.

While we're still some time away from Class of 1999 territory just yet, it's somewhat reassuring to know that even robot teachers can be as hapless as the flesh and blood versions.

School robots divide experts over teaching of phonics [The Guardian]

Today's military robots don't walk on two legs or look remotely human - they mostly look like miniature radio-controlled tanks. There's always a human somewhere with a laptop and a joystick controlling all of the robot's action. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are experimenting with the use of a controller from a Nintendo Wii to manipulate the bots. This gives the soldiers more freedom of movement and situational awareness than if they're staring into a laptop computer. While advances in robot technology will probably result in more radical robot designs and allow for the military's goal of a 30-percent robotic force, there will always be human involvement in the control process. Researcher Bill Smart had this to say about our future robot army:

"It's a chain of command thing. You don't want to give autonomy to a weapons delivery system. You don't want the robot to make the wrong decision."

Image by: Getty Images.

Military use of robots increases. [Washington University in St. Louis via EurekAlert]

Officials speaking to the Washington Post said this new policy was crucial in preventing terrorism.

According to the Post: Customs Deputy Commissioner Jayson P. Ahern said the efforts "do not infringe on Americans' privacy." In a statement submitted to [Senator Russell] Feingold for a June hearing on the issue, he noted that the executive branch has long had "plenary authority to conduct routine searches and seizures at the border without probable cause or a warrant" to prevent drugs and other contraband from entering the country.

What I find bizarre about this whole thing, aside from the idea that anybody's computer can be commandeered at the border, is the idea that these laptops are being "detained," as if they were sentient entities who were being interrogated. Pretty soon, robots are going to be detained too, and that may be the issue that gives us robot civil rights 100 years from now.

Laptops May Be Detained [MSNBC republishing Washington Post]

You’re #1: Ian Ingram, Artist-In-Residence at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute’s CREATE Lab, has mounted a 15-foot tall foam finger in Steelers colors atop the Andy Warhol Museum. The finger points to individuals who “high five” any of a number of smaller foam fingers placed throughout the city. The finger encourages viewers to try to figure out where the finger is pointing and explore new and familiar parts of the city.

Reach, Robot: Composer and choreographer Grisha Coleman created an interactive musical installation. As pedestrians walk through Pittsburgh’s PPG Plaza, a web of cables suspended above their heads reacts to their motions. Walking, pausing, stepping, and reaching all trigger various sounds in the installation, immersing passersby in the musical and spoken works of the city’s African-American writers and artists.

Shelter: Garth Zeglin is a researcher at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute whose work includes developing bipedal walking robots. But “Shelter” is a kinetic fabric robot. Viewers are invited to sit on a chair in the middle of two concentric fabric tents, which function independently of each other and respond to human presence as well as changes in light.

Extreme Animals: The Video Game: Inspired by his former job as the mascot at a Chuck E. Cheese, Matt Barton’s projects frequently include animatronic taxidermied animals. The animals of this work, created with Paper Rad member Jacob Ciocci, play frenzied video games, murmuring at and reacting to the game’s action. They glance back at approaching visitors, but promptly ignore them, returning their attention to the television screen.

ABB Basketball Arm: Perhaps the most well-traveled of the BigBots, this former automobile welder now shoots baskets at science museums across the country. The robot shoots free throws, with the angle and velocity of the ball selected by visitors, demonstrating concepts of precision and repeatability as well as how a single robot may serve diverse purposes.

The Look-See Tree: CMU grad student Ally Reeves designed a “Roving Art Cart” transported and powered by bicycle. The attached tree trunk lures viewers towards one of its six mini theaters, which come alive when it senses a human presence. Each theater displays an animatronic scene of animals whose existence is impacted by modern life; birds chirp cell phone rings and animals gather objects from the city for their nests.

Green Roof Roller Coaster: Gregory Witt and Joey Hays decided potted plants need a little more excitement in their lives, placing several young trees in a handmade rollercoaster on the roof of the Children’s Museum. The coaster’s cars monitor the vitals of the thrill-seeking vegetation and make sure they’re having a good time.

Rise and Fall: Artist Jennifer Gooch explores the nature of patriotic symbols and the ebb and flow of a nation’s dominance. Flags run up and down flagpoles and anthems play in a set loop. Visitors can send one flag to the top, but eventually it returns to its preset cycle.

Double-Taker: A robotic arm simulates human gestures and eye contact as it observes people outside the Center for Arts, making the occasional eponymous double-take. CMU Professor of Electronic Arts Golan Levin creates ocular art that changes based on the way the viewer views it.

prototype for an infinite array of semi-autonomous percussive devises (or Crickets): Kinetic sculptor Keny Marshall has created a network of cricket-like robots that knock out a certain pattern when they are “alive” and go silent when “dead,” that state determined through the rules of John Conway's “Game of Life.” Just like real crickets, this installation produces constant changes in harmony, with the added benefit that you can turn it off.

Mower: An android’s dream might be John Deere’s worst nightmare. An allusive electric sheep wanders the lawns of the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, providing all the benefits of grazing animal without the need for a pooper scooper. Mechanical engineer and visiting professor at the Carnegie Mellon School of Art Osman Khan deliberately created a robot that solves a problem with already existing solutions.

The Robot 250 Festival ends July 27, although some events and exhibits continue into August.

[Robot 250]

The must-have home accessory of this season has to be The Seeker Robot. This 3 1/2" tall droid will, according to its maker, "seek whatever it's current master commands ... object, information, person ... all other orders recinded!" If only it were more than an awesome (and affordable) sculpture from Etsy artist The Builder's Studio. More of his work under the jump.

Explaining his work, the Builder's Studio writes

In college the art form I spent the most time on was painting (visual art — I was an English major and am a writer and published author), but had an interest in jewelry since way back in high school (they even offered a small course in wax carving/lost wax method which I took)! I sculpt, design "items" and more.

In recent times, however, I have concentrated a large part of my efforts info makeing a line of science fiction and "geeky" items... a lot, but not all of it "retro tech." These are items that look the way we THOUGHT they would years ago. Think robots or ray guns from maybe the 1930's, flying saucers from the 50's and of course steampunk from the 1800's!

We've previously linked to his wedding cake decorations, but his complete Etsy store offers over 300 equally awesome items for sale, from rayguns to jewelry and even walking sticks.

The Builder's Studio [Etsy]

Physique: At 160 cm (approximately 5’3”) Manekin Robotto stands a good head below the recommended 5’8” for female models. She’s also surprisingly flat-chested and, let’s face it, a bit on the hippy side. But she wouldn’t be the first model in the industry to require implants and a little cosmetic soldering.

Weight: The robot model tips the scales at just over 66 pounds and rates a body mass index of 11.7, a number low enough to make human catwalkers vomit with envy. Unfortunately, it might also bar her from the runway. Following the malnutrition deaths of three models last year, European show organizers have required that models have a BMI of at least 18 to walk.

Cost: Despite the accompanying glitz and glamour, models in the US earn, on average, a mere $10.83 an hour. But even that paltry amount can’t compare with Manekin Robotto’s low, low price of $940. And that’s just the beginning of the savings. Robots don’t need to be schmoozed, run on far less blow, and tend not to complain when you fly them as cargo.

Appearance: Sadly, Manekin Robotto is cursed with a face only an engineer could love. Although not every fashion model is a classic beauty, Manekin Robotto’s cubic head and visible wires commit the cardinal sin of fashion: they would distract you from the clothes.

Verdict: Little more than a walking coathanger, Manekin Robotto won’t be getting the Tyra Banks seal of approval any time soon. But given that the robot model is economical, can be controlled from a PC, and is unlikely to hurl cell phones at assistants, models may find themselves looking over their shoulders on their next trip down the runway.

This humanoid robot may soon replace fashion models (or maybe not) [CrunchGear]

It's happened to all of us. We read a novel that blows us away, and a few years later its title appears on posters underneath the face of Harrison Ford or Natalie Portman. But at some inevitable point in that darkened theater, the movie takes a turn we didn't expect. Our eyebrows go up, our lips turn down, and the disappointment begins. Maybe the wrong director or writer can curse an otherwise excellent project — or maybe some things were just never meant to be filmed. Here are 10 books that we think should never have been committed to celluloid.

DUNE by Frank Herbert

There's no doubt about it: Herbert's Dune is a bona fide classic. It won the first ever Nebula award and the 1966 Hugo award, and most consider it to be the best-selling sci-fi novel in history. Set in a future where a feudal empire controls the planets of the unvierse, the novel tells the story of young nobleman Paul Atreides and his family's rule of the desert planet Arrakis. Arrakis is the only source of "melange," an addictive spice that lengthens lives and makes interstellar travel possible. Herbert's book explores the power struggles that arise around the spice, and the complexity of human society that exists even in the far future.

Big shoes to fill for a film producer. Yet in 1984 David Lynch wrote and directed a movie version of Dune, rescuing it from development hell and plunging it into bad-adaptation hell. Reviews panned the movie — Roger Ebert deemed it "the worst movie of the year," and others expressed similar disgust. Despite the movie's 40-million-dollar budget, its effects were notably cheap, and the screenplay did not hold up to the challenge of translating a four-hundred-page book to screen. You'd think you couldn't go wrong with Patrick Stewart, Sting, and Jürgen Prochnow, but evidently you very much can.

FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury

Who could forget Fahrenheit 451, "the temperature at which book-paper catches fire, and burns …"? Bradbury's classic 1953 novel takes place in a dystopian future where television has entirely replaced the printed word, and firemen burn books instead of saving lives. The author himself has stated that the point of the story was to showcase how owning a TV set can destroy all interest in literature — so making a movie version seems pretty damn ballsy to say the least.

With that in mind, the 1966 film, helmed by French icon François Truffaut, seems doomed from the start. It certainly didn't help that there were many notable omissions, like the disappearance of the novel's nuclear war (which is, let's face it, a pretty big cut). Julie Christie plays the main character's wife and his illicit lover, which adds an extra level of pointless weirdness. The bottom line is, there are plenty of books for which you can tell your friends to "just watch the movie." But in the case of Fahrenheit 451, that probably makes you kind of fascist. Just sayin'.

V FOR VENDETTA by Alan Moore and David Lloyd

The book is probably one of the best graphic novels ever produced. Detailing the adventures of a masked anarchist and his sweet blond protégée, Moore's writing also delves far deeply beyond his two main characters into complex themes of fascism, anarchy, identity, and the meaning of life itself. Nobody is without a story to tell: Even his villains are creepily sympathetic. By the end of the comic, every reader will have at least one Lloyd image burned in their brain, and be wondering — with no small amount of fear — exactly how much control their government does have.

Enter the movie. For the Wachowski brothers, the boys who gave us the two-thirds-sucky Matrix trilogy, setting this story to film was easy. They just had to cut out all of the character depth, change Moore's nuanced portrayal of British fascism to the cookie-cutter Hollywood standby of Suited White Men, and (of course) turn the subtle, understated relationship of the main characters into romantic pining. But hey, at least they got the costume right.

A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L'Engle

Though it's often marketed as a young-adult fantasy novel, make no mistake: This book is without a doubt a sci-fi classic for all generations, an incredible tale that deftly blends science, speculation, and humanity. L'Engle's 1962 story invented the concept of a "tesseract" — the fifth dimension, a phenomenon that folds the fabric of space and time. It introduced a mother who cooks dinner on a Bunsen burner, a father whose research leaves him imprisoned on another planet, and a brother and sister whose loving relationship turns out to be the most important thing in the universe.

Mostly we make an effort to ignore it, but it's true: Many of the great sci-fi writers were (and are) better at dreaming up nifty science ideas than they were at weaving together a compelling story. L'Engle, however, belongs in no such group. Her work was never meant to be a crappy Disney movie, and yet in 2003, a crappy Disney made-for-TV adaptation appeared that one critic described as "lightweight, saccharine, rather slow going most of the way, and somewhat simplistic" as well as "sometimes clunky, and... often uninspiring". Let us speak no more about it.

THE MINORITY REPORT by Philip K. Dick

Dick's 1956 short story introduced the chilling concept of "precrime," a police system whose officers arrest would-be murderers, rapists, and thieves before they get a chance to do their dirty deeds. His futuristic New York City is a world where three future-seeing mutants control who goes to prison and who doesn't, and free will is a gray area — a luxury that not everyone possesses. One veteran cop, after seeing a prediction that he will kill someone he doesn't even know, is having none of it.

So what did Steven Spielberg's 2002 movie add, besides a gross eye transplant? Well, for one, it brought in Tom Cruise — balding, out-of-shape 50-year-olds are never attractive narrators as far as Hollywood's concerned, no matter what they might be able to share with us in real life. The setting's different, too, and names have been changed, but at least it presents the idea with a lot more nifty special effects and a lot less storytelling, right? And that, my friends, is frighteningly endemic of the print-to-film adaptation.

I, ROBOT by Isaac Asimov

This is a revolutionary sci-fi classic, a collection of nine short stories exploring the limitations and dangers of human-created artificial intelligence. Asimov's 1950 publication of I, Robot established the Three Laws of Robotics, supposedly unbreakable rules which govern the actions of these metal beings, and his short stories read like the best sci-fi mind puzzles you will ever find.

2004's movie adaptation was undeniably well done, and it ended up being one of the best of the year — due in no small part to Jeff Vintar's tight script and the total awesomeness of Will Smith and Chi McBride. Asimov certainly meant to get us thinking, so one could imagine he'd be pleased that his work inspired a smart sci-fi thriller like this. As it happens, however, the main plot of the movie is actually lifted from a 1939 short story by Eando Binder that bears the same name; Asimov's publisher gave his collection the same title, against Asimov's wishes. The Three Laws of Robotics were only added to the script after the film's producers secured the rights to Asimov's anthology. This project, then, has been plagued from the beginning by intellectual property snafus: It's a confused collaboration of several minds, and it seems that not all the minds involved were properly credited. And since it's caused most of the problems, can we let go of that title already?

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE by Philip Gordon Wylie and Edwin Balmer

It's a crusty old staple of hard sci-fi, a 1933 novel that first saw print as a magazine serial. Wylie and Balmer's story begins with a South African astronomer, Sven Bronson, who discovers that a pair of rogue planets are headed for Earth's orbit. Only a small group of scientists believe his claim; they work to build two ships that will carry the beginnings of a new human settlement to one of the rogue planets, which is projected to replace Earth in its orbit. This is the kind of pre-NASA speculation that works best in old-fashioned typewriter font on yellowed paper.

But of course, Hollywood felt the need to put it in Technicolor. The film adaptation did win an Oscar for special effects, but it was 1951, so you decide for yourself if that's impressive. The movie's story doesn't so much explore sci-fi ideas as showcase human hysteria when tidal waves sweep the Earth and survivors are chosen by lottery — and it naturally also allows for the most groan-worthy of romance subplots. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the way the film's hero pushes his handicapped financier off the boarding ramp as the ship leaves, despite the fact that he funded the entire project. "Politically incorrect" doesn't begin to cover it. Apparently there's a remake of the film scheduled for a 2010 release — isn't one mistake supposed to teach you a lesson?

STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert Heinlein

War sucks, and Heinlein proved it with his 1960 Hugo-award-winning novel. Told from the point of view of Johnnie Rico, a young soldier, this futuristic tale explores a world where only veterans can vote or hold public office — and where humankind battles endlessly with giant bugs. Rico's flashbacks to his time at school, and his experiences in the military, serve to illustrate the total destruction that war causes.

In the book, the bugs barely ever appear; Rico views them only through a giant battle suit. For the 1997 film adaptation, though, that was not an option — after all, there ain't a moviegoer born of woman who doesn't want to see giant grasshoppers. Special effects left little screen time for Heinlein's philosophy discussions, but director Paul Verhoeven admitted he never got past the first few chapters of the novel anyway. If he hated the story that much, what do you think was keeping him from writing and directing his own friggin' screenplay?

THE POSTMAN by David Brin

Originally published as two novellas (both of which won Hugo awards), this post-apocalyptic story grapples with the concepts of survivalism, civilization, and hope. In a world destroyed not by disasters but by its own people, one man discovers a worn-out United States Postal Service uniform — and discovers that his fellow humans are so desperate they'll even take hope from that. The complete novel, published as the two novellas combined, was named the best science fiction novel of the year in 1986 in the John W. Campbell awards.

And then Kevin Costner decided to direct and star in a film adaptation. The 1997 story, while still broadcasting a message of hope, centered that message more around the Postman as a war hero — and don't forget his tagalong baby mama. The New York Times blasted the movie for its "bogus sentimentality" and "mawkish jingoism," but Roger Ebert warned that we "shouldn't blame them for trying." Well, I think perhaps we should.

THIS ISLAND EARTH by Raymond F. Jones

The year 1952, I'm sure, saw many new creations in sci-fi, but I'm willing to bet that almost none of them were as silly as the interociter — an alien transmission device, which despite its apparent sophistication is about as big as a truck. Jones gave us the interociter in his novel This Island Earth, which told of an alien race that recruited Earth's greatest thinkers for a group called the "Peace Engineers." Not surprisingly, the "Peace Engineers" were actually helping the aliens wage an intergalactic war. On a planet that had already seen the genius of 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still, this should not have seemed a good candidate for a film adaptation.

Since the movie version of This Island Earth now gets most of its viewings in the form of Mystery Science Theater 3000's lampoon, the folly of bringing it to film is assured. Plastic skulldomes, toilet thrones, and raspberry bushes are not the stuff of eternal movie classics. Before you adapt a book, my advice is to run it through a quick Mike-Joel-Crow-Tom Servo test. You might be surprised how much money you save on camera equipment and actors.

Gigantic comes from the fertile mind of Rick Remender, creator of '50s retro SF book Fear Agent and co-writer of Marvel's Punisher War Journal, and he's aiming for the book to offer highbrow writing to match the lowbrow spectacle on offer:

Visually, it’s a modern take on the big dynamic power of Jack Kirby, merged with the scale of a ‘Godzilla’ movie and sprinkled with 1950s sci-fi kitsch. ‘Gigantic’ will tap into what makes comics fun— big visually exciting pages and destruction on a scale never before seen... The series’ initial thrust will be the slowly unraveling the mystery of who Gigantic is and why he’s constantly being engaged in absurd and seemingly staged large-scale battles across our globe. Regardless of his attempt to stop the ensuing destruction and protect humanity, many of the attacks lead to the flattening of dozens of major cities across the globe, setting all governments to the singular task of annihilating this alien monster. As the size of the robots and bounty hunters sent to fight him continue to increase, so does the wholesale destruction of the cities of men. Gigantic’s guilt and sorrow exponentially increase as he begins to realize that no matter where he goes, death and destruction inevitably follow him.

The series - planned to continue indefinitely, running in blocks of five issues at a time - is aimed at an October launch.

The Ultimate Gladiator: Remender Talks 'Gigantic' [Comic Book Resources]

The bot is remote-controlled by magnetic field, just like the ones in the bloodstream. To move it up and down through your insides, your doctor will have a hand-held magnetic device about the size of a chocolate bar. Where ever s/he waves the device, the bot follows. The new gadget will be used for studying the insides of the stomach and esophagus mainly, which are usually hard because a device that's swallowed only spends few seconds in those parts of the body. Once in the stomach, it tends to sink to the bottom of the stomach, making imaging tough.

With magnetic control, doctors will be able to keep the camera-bot floating in the esophagus, stomach, or whatever part of the GI tract they want to study. It'll probably feel really strange having a robot wiggling through your esophagus, but it could go a long way towards treating cancers in the stomach and esophagus, not to mention that pesky, heartburn-inducing acid reflux disease.

Source: Eurekalert!

The snake-bot is the work of Merlin Robotics, Nottingham Trent University and the Edinburgh College of Art. Also on display: the Shadow Robot company's dextrous hand robot, which uses 40 Air Muscles to achieve 24 movements. It's the most advanced robot hand on Earth. (At first, the Getty Images captions were a tad confusing, and made it seem as though the dextrous hand was part of the robot snake. Which conjured some frankly bizarre mental images.)

Images by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images.

All six planes were developed for the U.S. military, and some of them flew major recon and combat missions in the Middle East.

• Lockheed Martin/Boeing DarkStar, a stealthy recon plane.
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• AeroVironment RQ-14A Dragon Eye, a hand-launched camera plane.
• 
  
• RQ-2A Pioneer, a recon plane that a number of Iraqi soldiers surrendered to in the first Gulf War, the first time anyone ever surrendered to a robot.
• 
  
• General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. MQ-1L Predator A, a recon plane that has fired missiles in combat situations.
• 
  
• AAI Corporation Shadow 200, another recon plane. The plane on exhibit is called the Screamin Demon and flew missions in Iraq until 2005.
• 
  
• Boeing X-45A Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS), one of two scaled down flight test models. This plane is the first built with the intent of using it in a combat role.
• 
  

The robot's physical model has 600 parts and took six months to put together. It includes rotating back shoulder brackets, so the back arms can rotate behind the robot's back when they're not in use. It also has welded steel frames running through its legs for extra support, and hubless motors in the feet. [Jordan Guelde, via [H] Enthusiast]

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Three Rules Of Music Video Robotics
1. Make it confusing. You're never quite sure what Kanye, Beck or Bjork is really up to in these videos.
2. Give a hint of androgyny.
3. And above all, make it sexy.

And here are our favorites:

Dresden Dolls, "Coin-Operated Boy"
An adorable but slightly sad little song about a boy brought to life for love at the low, low price of a single coin. The Dresden Dolls' Amanda Palmer sings, "Sitting on the shelf. He is just a toy. But I turn him on and he comes to life, automatic joy...Made of plastic and elastic.... More love without complications galore." The bittersweet ditty definitely sings of love, but it's not as tawdry as Gigolo Joe from AI. If only everything were this simple.

Bjork, "All Is Full Of Love"
Absolutely beautiful mechanical Bjork. Looks like the Svedka she-bot stole her look.

Beck, "Hell Yes"
Adorable QRIO 'bots bop along to "Hell Yes." Oh Beck you'll never be a "Loser" when you incorporate dancing robots.

Kylie Minogue, "Come Into My World"/Fever Tour Introduction
She may have battled gold angel hosts on Dr. Who but Kylie embraces her inner android at the opening of her tour gracing the stage in full robot armor. Which songstress Beyonce Knowles later mimicked at the 2007 BET awards. Who knew you could steal a robot look?

Robot Kingdom has been out of print since 1992. Although it got great reviews and the publishers had high hopes for it, sales figures were small. That was probably because the stuff Schodt was writing about was so alien to a U.S. audience. Schodt remembers seeing the book on the $1 rack at a bookstore in downtown San Francisco. Not long after that, Kodansha gave him back all rights to the book, as well as the original plates that were used to print it.

"The only problem with the book is that it was released ten years ahead of its time," says Chris Baker, a senior editor at Wired magazine. "If it had appeared in the era of ASIMO and AIBO, it would have found the audience it deserved." (Author Tim Hornyak published a follow-up to Robot Kingdom, called Loving the Machine, in 2006. It's a more pop-y, updated look at the robot industry, which, according to Hornyak, "has been very well received.")

In the 1980s, Americans seriously believed that the Japanese were going to take over the world. While technology manufacturing stateside was still subpar, it was equivalent to religious ritual in Japan—organized, routine, and very, very precise. Schodt, who had been hired to interpret during factory visits by major Japanese telecom companies visiting the U.S., was taken aback by the vast chasm between the two countries' processes. "The US didn't understand Japan's obsession with quality control and manufacturing technology," Schodt says. "They thought, we have the space shuttle, and we have the bomb. What else could we possibly need? Their factories were a mess."

When he returned to Japan, Schodt signed up for factory tours at JVC, Toshiba, Hitachi, and Fanuc. He found that each company had intense pride in their manufacturing processes and culture. The best of them had entire assembly lines formed by robots in virtually unmanned factories.

For the Japanese, robotics was not just a natural step in the evolution of the world; it was an enormous financial and emotional investment into a glorified future in which humanoid robots would eventually help humans in daily life. People were excitedly tossing around words like "robot kingdom" (ロボット王国)　and watching anime like Gundam and Astro Boy with starry-eyed hope for a happy sci-tech future. "Robots are a metaphor for the relationship between technology and culture," Schodt says.

The book itself is a classic—it talks about the first Japanese robot ever (a tea-serving mechanical bot from the 17th century), scifi robots, anime robots, religion's influence on robotics, the difficulties of defining the word "robot", and the promising future of the humanoid. Schodt took most of the photographs in the books on his own, and collected the rest via all-day train rides across Japan to meet his sources. He even drew all the graphs and diagrams in the book by hand.

In addition to predicting the rise of robots in Japan, Schodt also foresaw the manga craze that would hit the U.S. in the 1990s. In 1983, when he published the iconic Manga! Manga!, most Americans had never even heard of Japanese comics; today they take up entire sections of bookstores like Borders and Barnes & Noble.

We've come a long way since Robot Kingdom. Stories about new Japanese bots show up in the blogosphere every day, and we all know that Japan's headed into the next phase of full humanoid bot integration (because I told you so). But in 1988, Schodt's book was the only resource on Japanese robots that existed in the US.

If you ask the man himself, though, he'll tell you that he was just in the right place at the right time. "I haven't actually predicted anything very accurately in life," Schodt says. "All I've done is identify a couple of trends that were staring me in the face."

Spoken like a true futurist.

Frederik Schodt's home page

• Big Guy: If you haven't read Frank Miller and Geof Darrow's Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot oversized graphic extravaganza, then you need to go out and pick it up right now. We'll wait. Ready? Okay. Big Guy is an over-armed, over-achieving battletank complete with his own boy scout do-gooder companion, Rusty. Now, the secret is that Big Guy is actually pilot by Lieutenant Dwayne Hunter, so he's not really a sentient robot. However, the world at large doesn't know this, and if you assemble a robot army, you're going to want to fight in it, right? Well, here's your e-ticket. We'd take him over Voltron or the Power Rangers megabot any day.
• Maxmillian from Disney's The Black Hole: This blood red robot could hover and had whirling blades at the ends of his arms... what's not to love? Sure he had good old laser blasters, but when he could turn your guts into a blended smoothie, who cared about guns? His ominous, scary head terrified me as a kid, and he'll do the same to human ground troops. Just keep him away from circular saws and other cutting tools.Oh, he also serves as a handy storage device for deposed megalomaniacs as well, in case you find yourself needing that sort of thing.
• Nixon from Hard Boiled: Geof and Frank also collaborated on the amazing Hard Boiled, which features more destruction and mayhem than a Michael Bay movie, all in intricately drawn in Geof Darrow's "obsessive attention to detail" style. Armed with just a handgun and his bare (later robotic) fists, Nixon cleaves his way through just about everything you can imagine, including giant barreling cars and a dog with laser beams for eyes.
• The Iron Giant in KickAss Mode: Have you seen The Iron Giant? This sadly unappreciated film was directed by Brad Bird for Warner Bros. animation, and really deserved a larger audience. The quirky 1950s retro-setting was perfect for this story about a lost alien robot superweapon who winds up on Earth and wants to be Superman. Of course, when he went haywire and turned into a giant gun that could take out anything, that's when he was at his most awesome. Of course, the movie wanted you to think that was bad, but we think it's incredible. Bring on the big guns!
• The Robot from Lost in Space: He may not have had a name (although his crate said ONE General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental ROBOT, so he might have been GUNTER), but he was loyal, always at the ready, and able to shout "Danger!" whenever something alarming was about to happen. Plus he was a perfect foil for that nebbishy Doctor Smith. Now, the Lost in Space movie might not have thrilled everyone (I actually enjoyed it), but the updated Robot in that (with the same voice) was a badass with plasma blasters attached. Both versions had treads, waving arms, and a giant round head. What more can you ask for? Well, step one would be to order him to destroy Matt LeBlanc.
• The Terminator from The Terminator: You can't really make a list of badass robots without including the Terminator, but which model do you pick? All of them? Only one? The T-1000? The Arnie models? The Summer Glau-bot? We have to go with the original from the first movie, because he was much grittier, to the point, and without a sense of humor. Plus he could growl out "Fuck you, asshole" better than any of the other models, who apparently had their language sanitized.
• Soundwave from The Transformers: Screw Optimus Prime and Megatron, even though either one would be a more powerful, logical choice. No, we like Soundwave because of his awesome voice. Who didn't want to talk like an old-school Cylon? Plus he could transform into a Walkman and fool all of your friends. Plus the cassettes became his recon sidekicks. The toy was a lot more heavily armed than the version in the cartoon, and a lot more badass. He had a microphone that could turn into a missile launcher. What more do you need? "RAVAGE, EJECT. OPERATION: ASS-KICKING."
• The Gunslinger from WestWorld: There is probably nothing scarier than a relentless Yul Brynner-bot without a face chasing after you relentlessly. Except maybe two of them. Just like the Terminator he never got tired, had a fast-walking pace that never faltered, and was always ready to blow your head off. Yul Brynner's own face was steely enough to be frightening, but once his own face popped off exposing the transistors and wires beneath he was nightmare-inducing.
• The Killbots from Chopping Mall: Originally released as Killbots, this Roger Corman produced film features three security robots going haywire in a mall in California and chopping everyone into shreds. Plus they had those creepy Cylon-esque red eyes which just meant they were up to no good. Strangely, it'd didn't do too well as Killbots, but they released it again as Chopping Mall, and it brought in some bucks. Not a blockbuster, to be sure, but check out what a gory name change can do. These are the guys you'd want on the front lines, cutting through the infantry so the big guns can sit back and wait.
• Ultron from Marvel Comics: Not only is Ultron one of the most ultimate killing robots ever devised, he also has a grinning visage that will scare the crap out of you just by seeing it. Granted, he was a bit unstable and the Avengers seemed to have no problem taking him down again and again, and he was even created by one of their own. However, if you can get past his epithet shouting, revenge driven programming, he'd make a good asset to have if you ever need to talk someone to death.
• Mechagodzilla: You've got to have one giant weapon you keep in reserve, ready to bust out and make everyone pee their pants just when the time is right. Who better than Mechagodzilla to do that? In fact, trot him out in his Godzilla disguise first, and then you have people thinking "Oh crap, it's Godzilla!" Then once they think they've defeated him, but actually just destroyed his fake Godzilla skin, you've got people thinking "Oh crap, it's Mechagodzilla! Screw it, we surrender." Built by aliens, he's a badass robo-copy of Japan's mightiest protector.
• Major Motoko from Ghost in the Shell: If you ever want to see a woman take on a tank all by herself with nothing more than an automatic rifle, then look no further. Sure, she's a cyborg with some cloaking technology, but that hardly makes her any less badass. As a field commander on the ground, Motoko could issue commands and kick ass at the same time. Of course, she'll also obsessively leave the field to follow up on Puppetmaster clues and hints, but that might be a small price to pay for her skills.
• HAL-9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey: You'd need someone to run the numbers and come up with strategies while all the fighting was going on, and who better than good old, red-eyed HAL back at the base crunching scenarios? Of course, the downside is that is things start looking like they might threaten HAL at all, he'll pull the plug on everyone else to save himself. However, he'd explain it to you in that calm, easy cadence, so you probably wouldn't mind at all.

• Johnny Five from Short Circuit: This guy couldn't kick any ass, so make him zip back and forth in a shooting gallery style and let your 'bots with distance weapons take shots at him.
• David from A.I.: If you want to train your bots on how to capture kids and hold them for ransom, use good old David-bot and his Teddy for some games of hide and seek in urban settings. Just be gentle, because the kid could hardly eat spinach, let alone take a pulse-rifle blast to the spine.
• V.I.N.C.E.N.T. from The Black Hole: Okay, I'll say it here, I have a true soft spot for this movie, and for V.I.N.C.E.N.T. However, he wouldn't have been too effective as a soldier (unless you had just offed his buddy B.O.B... continually), so if you put him out to pasture for target practice, at least he'd be doing some good. Sorry, little buddy *sniff*.
• C3P0 from Star Wars: R2D2 may be useful enough to keep around in an engineering or repair bay somewhere, but C3P0 was useless. No speed, no weapons, and a mouth that wouldn't quit? Use him for hand-to-hand combat training and see how many languages he can say "Not in the face!" in.
• Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation: Come on, how annoying did this guy get? Surround him in an open field and let the whole crew go to town. Keep spare parts around so you can repeat this over and over.

Spiner's non-appearance (the honor was accepted on his behalf by Zachary Quinto, who probably made some mention of his Star Trek movie in his acceptance speech) didn't ruin the event, however, as Data was only one of four inductees:

The Raibert Hopper is a one-legged robot developed by Marc Raibert, president of Boston Dynamics, in the Leg Laboratory, first at Carnegie Mellon and later at MIT. The Hopper hops around on one foot, is able to maintain balance, somersault, and jump over objects. It examines the principles of balance that have become central to agile movement by bipedal and quadrapedal robots.

Lars Nyengaard, director of innovation and education projects for LEGO Education, accepted an award for the induction of Mindstorms, a robotic kit that teaches people young and old to program and assemble robots, which make robots accessible to the masses.

Todd Jochem, a Ph.D. graduate of Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute, spoke on behalf of NavLab 5, an autonomous minivan developed at the Robotics Institute.

Jochem started working with robots in 1990 at Carnegie Mellon, working for Chuck Thorpe in the NavLab group. Jochem, who later founded Applied Perception Inc., was one of two students who rode in NavLab in 1995's "No Hands Across America" tour, on which NavLab 5 steered itself on public highways across the country.

Applied Perception Inc., which focused on the perception, planning, and control technologies for unmanned vehicles, was bought last year by Foster-Miller, the largest supplier of military robots. Jochem is currently the group director of Foster-Miller.

Jochem said that his work in the robot industry currently revolves around "making robots smarter and more useful." One of the industry's newest developments allows robots to help battlefield medics find and extract wounded soldiers. As of now, the robots have not been tested on an actual battlefield but "the ideas it has spawned will eventually help save lives," said Jochem.

SCS' Robot Hall of Fame inducts four new robots [Tartan Online]

Directed by Stuart Gordon (Reanimator) and written by Gordon and Joe Haldeman, Jox takes place in a future postapocalyptic world, after some kind of nuclear cataclysm. The U.S. and Soviet Union, now called the Western Market and the Russian Confederation, no longer fight wars to settle their disputes. Instead, they send huge freaking robots into battle, to smack each other down until a victor is declared.

I love the way the battlesuits are depicted, with Alexander moving his actual hand to make the robot's hand reach down and overturn Achilles' tank. The giant robot effects are entirely done using models and stop-motion animation, but they look way better than a lot of CGI I've seen. In particular, you can actually see the fighting robot transforming into a tank — unlike in Michael Bay's Transformers, where the transformations were always so blurry and disjointed that you couldn't make out what was happening. Thanks to everyone who recommended Robot Jox to me — it really is an instant classic.

Sadly, it's not a movie poster. It's the personal creation of visual artist Yanick Dusseault, who provided concept art on GATTACA, 3D work on Titan AE, and painted matte paintings on everything from Star Wars to The Island. Somehow, he also manages to find time to work on an impressive array of his own personal artwork (like this piece), which can be seen at his website.

Images by Andre Kutscherauer. [Artist's site, via BotJunkie]

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Wall-E: The Video Game will be out on June 27th, for just about every gaming platform you can imagine. Probably even on your car's computer navigation screen, or your internet-ready can opener.

New Wall-E Screens [Worth Playing]

The folks at Andrew Maynard Architects explain their project, with tongues planted mostly in cheek:

The age of the outer-suburb is soon to come to an end. Many analysts believe that Peak-Oil will be reached soon after 2011. When we hit Peak-Oil we will not only have no petrol to run cars, furthermore we will no longer have many of the goods we need and there will be huge food shortages as food production and distribution relies heavily on oil based fertilisers which drastically increase yields.

With no cars people will no longer be able to reach the suburbs and hence metropolitan populations will swell as suburban refugees are forced to wander into the cities . . . The suburbs will decay . . . At Andrew Maynard Architects, we have decided to give mother-nature a hand. We have begun designing the first suburb eating robot and we hope to go into production in early 2019. We have called our robot the CV08. In short, CV08 consumes the abandoned suburbs through its front 2 legs. It processes the materials and fires off compacted recycling missiles to awaiting recycling plants. CV08's middle legs and one