Maybe Not Great, But Definitely Pretty Good

It's been a pretty dry spell for news on all things robotic, which may or may not be a good thing. The best I have to offer is this piece I culled from a link on Fark.com.

The folks over at Forbes.com must have had some spare time on their hands recently, so they decided to make a list of 25 Great Achievements in Robotics History.

Spanning over 3400 years, it's an interesting overview, including actual inventions, as well as the more philosophical musings on robot-dom from the likes of Aristotle, Da Vinci, and Asimov (however I take issue with the inclusion of 5, count 'em, 5 fictional robotic characters).

My personal favorite is the clockwork duck built in 1737 by Jacques de Vaucanson that could flap its wings, quack, and eat and digest food.

Missing from the list, any mention of Alan Turing, a visionary who not only designed some of the first computers, but who in 1950 articulated the Turing Test for machine intelligence, something the bloggers of Robot Doom are very keen to monitor...

Well, we knew this was coming...

...didn't we? As reported on Wired's Table of Malcontents, as brought to our attention by alert reader Oragamislayer.

(I'm sure there's a "squeal like a pig" joke in here, but I'm too tired to think of it).

Danger Level: 9 (now they know...)