This unusual headline caught our eye: DARPA kickstarts research into robot Viagra. Robot Viagra? Maybe it's some kind of a Terminator tie in. Terminator came out almost 30 years ago, and Ahnold is hitting 65 this month, the age where men often turn to the blue pill for backup. No, as much as we'd like to see Schwarzenegger pitching our favorite pharmaceutical product (think how much mileage they could get out of that "I'll be back" catchphrase), this has nothing to do with Skynet.
Rather, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is looking for ways to make our mechanical minions more powerful and efficient. They're looking for ways to give robots more juice - more bang for the buck from their batteries, so to speak. And find more efficient ways for them to move, maximizing the potential of their energy usage. Their project's goal is "achieving a 2,000 percent increase in the efficiency of power transmission and application in robots".
Wow. It will be interesting to see what happens as our future robot overlords take this quantum leap and power up.
