http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10287597-71.htmlIn the future, we will need robots to do our dirty work.
In the future, we will need robots to do our clean work, too.
So in the future, we will need our robots to live, like farmers in centuries gone by, off the fat of the land.
One contractor to the Pentagon, Robotic Technology Inc., is already forging ahead with creating foraging robots.
According to its Web site, the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot--or EATR--is "an autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance missions without the need for manual or conventional re-fueling."
We have all resorted to unconventional re-fueling once or twice in our lives. However, I would very much like to use Robotic Technology's precise terminology so as not to affect your edification.
"The system obtains its energy by foraging--engaging in biologically-inspired, organism-like, energy-harvesting behavior which is the equivalent of eating," says the Web site.
Imagine if that thing was one day built up to be like a 20 foot tall fighting robot that repairs itself by digesting the bodies of it's victims.