No Flesh-Eating Zombie Warbots After All

You've probably heard about the development of warbots that "feed themselves" with biomass this past week; it's been all over the web. I don't really watch TV anymore, so I don't know what coverage has been like in that medium. Obviously, the conclusion everyone jumped to was that the robots would be consuming the casualties. But in one of the most unintentionally funny press releases ever, Cyclone Power Technologies Inc. and Robotic Technology Inc. beg to set the record straight:

“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” stated Harry Schoell, Cyclone’s CEO. “We are focused on demonstrating that our engines can create usable, green power from plentiful, renewable plant matter. The commercial applications alone for this earth-friendly energy solution are enormous.”

From Wired, via Making Light. Click over to the Wired link to read the whole thing; the above quote is just an excerpt.

I'm not sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed.

Followup: I'm finding most people I talk to haven't heard about the zombie warbot story... here's a quote nicked from "My Corner to Vent:"

Robotic Technology Inc.’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that’s right, “EATR” — “can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable,” reads the company’s Web site.

That “biomass” and “other organically-based energy sources” wouldn’t necessarily be limited to plant material — animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they’d be plentiful in a war zone.

The original story was at FauxNews, but in an act of their typical journalistic excellence, they've taken it down and give a link to a story more pleasing to their corporate overlords. Pharyngula also linked to the original article, and has some acerbic commentary, basically pointing out that the Faux reporters didn't bother to read the description of this technology before writing their report.