US Army xBot programme halted by IP fracas

A major American military push to get more combat robots into the field has ground to a halt following a bitter dispute between rival mechanoid makers. The xBot procurement programme, run by the US Army's Robotic Systems Joint Program Office, is intended to obtain as many as 3,000 new robots and to do so quickly in defence …

[Paul Williams]

Why dont they both just pull out...

...and let Cyberdyne become the preferred option?

[Ben W]

Erm..

because it would only be a matter of time till skynet considers them both a risk and eliminates them anyway thats why!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cyberdyne

Or perhaps they could give the contract to up-and-coming young startup Omni Consumer Products, who are based in Detroit. I hear they are developing a line of robots designed for "urban pacification". Or perhaps those clever bods at the Delos Foundation could come up with some robot gunslingers - armed with special infra-red guns, and programmed not to kill women or children. What could possibly go worng?

I choose Paris Hilton as my avatar, because she is an expert on achieving solutions via mechanical means.

[Adrian Jones]

The obvious solution

Is to have a Robotic FX droid and a Roomba fight it out for the contract.

Are Craig Charles and Phillipa Forester available?

[Sam Spencer]

Don't forget Tyrell Corporation.

Although the 4 year lifespan is a bit of a bummer...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lack of droids puts soldiers' lives at risk?

I would rather be of the opinion messin' where you shouldn't be messin' puts soldiers' lives at risk, but what do I know...

And anyway, you go to war with the droids you have, not the droids you wish you had or might have at a later date.

[jonathan keith]

These...

... aren't the droids you're looking for.

[Anonymous Coward]

The new robot...

looks and works exactly like the old irobot version, except it has all the nice features users wanted and didn't get from irobot. Also it looks like it's made out of standard consumer grade components instead of the more expensive military kit used by irobot. Most of it's sensor arrays are standard handled devices or intrusion detection and surveilence kits conneted to a standard wifi capable laptop inside the main chassis. (for clues, look for the mimo antennes on the control box and the wireless security cam led lights) It's a cheap irobot packbot clone with most special features integrated into a single package with a nice master-slave joystic for movement control, that makes it easily controllable. (btw: you can build one yourself from standard off the shelf components and some creative hacking)

[Anonymous Coward]

Tyrell

Furthermore, there's a Czech fellow called Rossum who has a line of general-purpose robots. They've been around for a while.

[amanfromMars]

Clever robots ..... dumb humans. Handbags at dawn

"which it landed after beating iRobot in an unusual reverse auction."....

Sounds dodgy but that's the American Dream way? Money for nothing and the chicks for free?

But there's no such thing as a free lunch whenever everything has a price put upon it. And don't be saying that is natural whenever it is so blatantly artificial and leading to Dire Straits.

[Nick Reid]

Is it just me...

...or is reading amanfromMars' posts just like listening to a Radiohead song? Could it be he's really Thom Yorke? I think we should be told.

[Eduard Coli]

The rich are different

No honor among thieves.

It nice to see the rich scrapping it out over some juicy tax payer money.