1. The word robot, coined by Czech playwright Karel Capek in his 1921 play "R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)," is based on the Czech word "robota," meaning forced labor or serf.
2. Here's a nightmare scenario: Robots learn to build new robots, replicating without human aid and eventually achieving world domination.

3. "Proprioception" is sometimes called the sixth sense.

4. As household robots such as the Roomba vacuum cleaner gain popularity, clashes with pets are becoming more common.

5. Cyborgs--part man and part machine--are coming. In fact, some would say they're already here.

6. Scientists are studying swarming behavior among robots--the collective actions of robots that have individual intelligence.

7. The "Uncanny Valley" is a theory by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori suggesting that as robots become more humanlike, people's empathy with them increases.

8. While androids--humanlike robots--dominate popular perceptions, many roboticists believe that the robots of the future will be limited-function machines that look nothing like people.

9. The U.S. military may be struggling to sign up soldiers, but it's recruiting plenty of robots.

10. Many Americans view robots as threatening, but the Japanese have fully adopted them, consistent with their Buddhist and Shinto principles.

chicagotribune

1  “Robot” comes from the Czech word robota, meaning “drudgery,” and first appeared in the 1921 play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). The drama ends badly when the machines rise up and kill their creators, leaving a sole lonely survivor.

2  They say it was an accident. The first known case of robot homicide occurred in 1981, when a robotic arm crushed a Japanese Kawasaki factory worker.

3  More than a million industrial robots are now in use, nearly half of them in Japan.

4  Archytas of Tarentum, a pal of Plato’s, built a mechanical bird driven by a jet of steam or compressed air—arguably history’s first robot—in the fifth century B.C.

5  Leonardo da Vinci drew up plans for an armored humanoid machine in 1495. Engineer Mark Rosheim has created a functional miniature version for NASA to help colonize Mars.

6  Slow but steady: The real Mars robots, Spirit and Opportunity, have logged 10.5 miles trudging across the Red Planet for more than three years. The unstoppable droids were built to last 90 days.

7  The United States’ military corps of 4,000 robots includes reconnaissance Talon bots that scout for roadside bombs in Iraq and PackBots that poked around for Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Afghanistan. Apparently without much success.

8  PackBot’s manufacturer, iRobot, has also sold more than 2 million Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners, with the same environment-sensing technology.

9  Low tech vs. high tech: Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have reportedly used ladders to flip over and disable the U.S. military robots sent to scout out their caves.

10  Elektro, the world’s first humanoid robot, debuted in 1939. Built by Westinghouse, the seven-foot-tall walking machine “spoke” more than 700 words stored on 78-rpm records to simulate conversation.

full list via htdiscovermagazine