Sexbots, laundroids and killer drones: The robot revolution got real in 2015

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Hanson Robotics, the world's leading developer of human-like robots, unveiled its new humanoid Han in Hong Kong earlier this year. The robot's skin is made out of Frubber, an elastic polymer that...

[zombola]

The kind of artificially intelligent soldier-robot from the futuristic movie The Terminator may be a long way off, but policy analysts are grappling now with limits on the military use of robots.
One of 2015's most alarming robot news stories was that of a machine at a German auto factory that killed a 22-year-old human worker by grabbing and crushed him against a metal plate.
Also scary was the volume of stories this year about military advancements in robotic technology.
Lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) were the subject of hot debate all year as lawmakers deliberated over how to regulate robots that could eventually have the ability to select, target and engage in deadly attacks without human intervention.
The United Nations will host a third meeting to discuss the issue with representatives from around the world in April.
Meanwhile, technology companies and government agencies continue to build increasingly deadly machines that could one day replace humans on the battlefield — or rise up and kill us all, if you read some internet forums.
They made us inexplicably angry
Robot fans around the globe were outraged in August to learn that Canada's own "social robot" HitchBOT had been vandalized in Philadelphia and left without a head just two weeks into its first tour across the U.S.
A pair of YouTube pranksters later claimed responsibility for a fake video of the attack, and while online users decried their actions, many people also appeared to delight in watching someone kick Boston Dynamics' Spot the robot dog.
Research released this year by Osaka University also indicated that violence against robots could be a growing issue – particularly among children, who were observed hitting, kicking and verbally abusing a shopping robot in surveillance footage from a Japanese mall this year.
Rise of the cyborgs?
You know what they say: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em... though in this case, it would be more like "incorporate them into your body."
Ray Kurzweil, Google's director of engineering and a noted futurist and inventor, made a startling prediction in June while speaking at a New York conference.
"In the 2030s, we're going to connect directly from the neocortex to the cloud... We will be able to fully back up our brains."
Take that for what you will, but it's worth noting that 78 per cent of the 147 predictions Kurzweil made in his 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines were deemed "entirely correct" within 10 years.
Among those predictions were the rise of portable computing, wireless technology replacing cables and the distribution of music in an entirely digital form.


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