The Threat is Real!

Hey, Randy here once again giving you some random news as well as reminding you to listen to The Metal Show on KRUI 89.7 TONIGHT from 7-9PM!

Anyways, I was reading an article online about the 2008 Robocup German Open Humanoid League.

What in the hell is that you ask?

Well there are these robots that are supposed to resemble humans that compete in a soccer game. Here is a quote from the article on USA Today's website.

"Stefan Kohlbrecher, a member of the Technical University of Darmstadt's Darmstadt Dribblers team, said the process of getting six tall robots on wheels to play each other was not as complicated as it looks.

"It works with this camera, he can see with this regular webcam. He can look around, and when he sees the ball these data are processed," he told AP Television. "We tell him that what is orange and round is the ball."

The two-legged robots playing in the Humanoid League are much slower and, frankly, not much good at the game. However, Bredenfeld said they've made a lot of technical progress recently.

"They have to open doors, recognize faces and reach for items," he said.

Ultimately, Kohlbrecher says, the aim is to field a team of robots against people.

"The goal of the RoboCup is to compete against human world champions with robots by the year 2050," he said. "We're still a little far from it, but there is a lot of time to reach it.""

Is it just me or did that last quote scare you and send visions of *insert random robots revolting and destroying the world movie here* into your head?

If these robots get to the point where they can play soccer against humans in 2050, how long will it be before they can crush human skulls?

That could be a metal song, RoboSkullCrush!

Anyways, just some food for thought, remember to listen to The Metal Show on KRUI 89.7 tonight from 7-9PM!

Check out a video of the 2007 Robocup here.