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Thursday, March 16, 2006

Robots are ready to break Asimov's Laws!


The US army has come up with a new breed of robot 'soldiers' armed with deadly machine guns to fight war for them.

Eventhough they would be mostly remote controlled,and don't take decisions on their own, they are designed to fire machine guns.


This violates Asimov's laws of robotics:
  1. A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
  2. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  3. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  4. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Ofcourse even in his stories, the robots often 'disobeyed' the laws. But this is the first time in real-life robots are designed specifically to fight against human beings. These robots are based on a more gentle version, which were used in a more constructive manner to disarm bombs.

Photo/News src: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4199935.stm

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Happy Pi-Day everyone!

Pi-day is celebrated on March 14th (3-14) signifying the first few digits of Pi!

The actual value of Pi is not known or cannot be known, Computers have calculated the value of Pi to more than a Trilion decimal places.

You can download the value of pi upto 50 Million digits! here

Monday, March 13, 2006

Google maps for mars!

Google maps goes to new level with maps of mars...It comes in time when the new NASA mars orbiter enters a crucial phase of orbit around the red planet. The map comes with interesting features such as search for landing sites of previous mars missions, canyons, dunes, craters etc (even the probable crash site of Beagle2 probe!) A fun way to discover the most researched planet in the solar system (other than the earth ofcourse!)

URL: http://www.google.com/mars/

(Previously Google had published maps of moon)