News
Melting Robots Are the Future, Accept It
A new study details the creation of a hyper-flexible material inspired by an unexpected source: the humble sea cucumber.
robots
Art
A Robot Dog Is Painting Self-Portraits at the 2022 Spring Break Art Fair
There's an artist currently showing in Midtown Manhattan who is teaching a machine to paint.
News
Meet Spot, the (Robot) Underdog of Pompeii
Robo-hounds are being deployed to inspect the ancient city for structural threats to its preservation.
News
With Smithsonian's Blessing, Humanoid Robots Invade Our Museums
The Smithsonian is the first museum complex to integrate the interactive androids.
Art
How Robots Can Help Painters
Barnaby Furnas's latest paintings, which deconstruct American myths and symbols, were made with unusual studio assistants.
In Brief
Japanese Company Creates Robot Priest to Administer Your Last Rites
Plastics manufacturer Nissei Eco introduced Pepper last month, a robe-donning robot trained to recite prayers and scripture while tapping a little drum.
Art
Five Centuries of Robotic Machines Reflect Human and Technological Change
Five centuries of robots, from clockwork monks to mechanical actors, are explored in a major exhibition at London's Science Museum.
News
A Lost 1920s Robot Is Reconstructed in London
The UK's first robot, Eric, disappeared after his debut, but the Science Museum has created a working replica.
Art
The Incredible Electric Eric: Rebuilding a Lost 1920s British Robot
By all accounts, the debut of the UK's first humanoid robot was a startling affair.
Art
The Robots Being Built to Cross the US-Mexico Border
"For the last 15 years, I've been trying to solve the human," artist Chico MacMurtrie explained, surrounded by the mechanical beings which he's animated with metal and air in this quest to give his sculptures life.
Books
The 9th-Century Islamic "Instrument Which Plays by Itself"
In the 9th century, the Banū Mūsā brothers in Baghdad designed a mechanical, hydraulic organ that was made to play endlessly by itself.
Art
The Bumbling Robots and Awkward Automatons of Silent Cinema
The word "robot" first appeared in Czech author Karel Čapek's 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots).