Just in time for Halloween, robots.net gleefully tell us that “WowWee has a new Animatronic Monkey Head for sale for $149.95!”
This eerie creation can see, hear and feel. It can interact intelligently with you, your family, your guests…and with baffled strangers. His red eyes track movements using infrared “radar” vision; his ears have stereoscopic sound sensors; his skin reacts to contact with touch sensors all around. He also has “vocal chords” and realistically mimics the authentic sounds of a live chimp and can thereby reflect his emotions. The “natural” autonomous mode of “Alive” Chimpanzee can be overridden by a wireless controller. “Guard” mode allows you to preset a series of actions and vocalizations and waits for anything to trip his sensors for it to go off on some unsuspecting victim! Pause for a moment and reflect on what awesome childish things you could do with this monkey head!
So, a marriage of an Animatronic Monkey Head with a Playground Patrol Droid and faster than you can say “Monkey Clutching Gorts” you have got a Flying Monkey Sentry Bot that could leapfrog poor C4. The challenge will be to build a flyable package with sufficient intrusion detection artificial intelligence, suitable weaponry, and satisfactory navigation, plus enough power to provide a decent operating range.
What truly amazes me is the price that such motion detection sensors can be offered. The price goes up when the expert system needs to perceive terrain, besides distinguishing “intruder-in-terrain”. Nevertheless, if Bat-Bot is any indicator, pretty soon wicked geeks could make good on their threat of swarm robotics:
“Don't Make Me Call Out the Flying Monkeys“
