Snake robot goes where humans can't

In keeping with this month's IS Group science fiction reading, The Dervish House, by Ian McDonald, which features a children's toy that is a nanobot that reassembles into various forms, including a bird, a rat, and a snake, IEEE Spectrum on-line has a report called, "Japanese Snake Robot Goes Where Humans Can't." "Japanese robotics company HiBot has unveiled a nimble snake bot capable of moving inside air ducts and other narrow places where people can't, or don't want to, go." Not quite the snake of The Dervish House, but a good start. The IEEE website has a number of videos of the ACM family of robots in action.

IEEE Spectrum on Cyborg Life

An article by Antonio Espingardeiro, called "When Will We Become Cyborgs?", in IEEE Spectrum online ponders our cyborg future. Check it out.

The Smart Grid

IEEE Spectrum has a special report called The Smart Grid. "Taking the latest in computing and communications technology to make the electrical system more interactive, efficient, and robust is not a new idea. What’s new is that suddenly more than 10 billion federal dollars are being poured into it. But all that money will be well spent only if regulators are as inventive and intelligent as transmission and distribution engineers have been."