Dr. J. Storrs Hall is an expert on molecular nanotechnology and the head of the Foresight Nanotech Institute (which raises awareness about the very same). That means he spends a lot of time thinking about robots. Or, to be specific, the kind of robots that will take over the world.

In a piece titled "More on the AI takeover," Dr. Hall outlines four classes of 'bots he could see rising up:

• Robo insectis: rote, mechanical gadgets (or thinkers) with hand-coded skills, such as Roomba or industrial robots or automated call-center systems or dictation programs.
• Robo habilis: Rosie the housemaid robot level intelligence, able to handle service level jobs in the real world but not a rocket scientist.
• Robo sapiens: up to and including rocket scientists, AI researchers, corporate executives, any human capability.
• Robo googolis: a collection of top R. sapiens wired together in a box running at accelerated speed, equivalent to, say, Google (the company and the search engine together).

"The key thing to remember when thinking about the economic AI takeover is that it is not something we should be trying to prevent," Dr. Hall continues. "Why shouldn't we spend our efforts deciding what needs to be done, and let the machines do it?"

Why not, indeed? What about you, dear reader? Would you be all for living in a world run by robots?

Foresight, via io9

Is Google taking over the world? Well, now you can see how much it's taking over your world with the Google dashboard, listing each of the company's services you're using, information you've entered, and items you've shared. From this one location, you can delete data, change settings and generally manage all your Googleism.

We're big fans of the excellent Gmail and its contacts database, Google Calendar, Picasso Web albums, Google Voice, YouTube, and Google Reader, and appreciate the ability to keep track of them with this new dashboard. A huge drawback is the lack of a dashboard for Google Apps accounts (where you can use your own custom domain name), which is beginning to seem like a poor stepchild to Google when it rolls out new features.

We like the idea of controlling all of our Google activities in one easy to find location. Some of our buddies are really worried about computing in the cloud, and are particularly concerned about handing over their personal data and documents to Google. Not us. How about you, readers?

Google Dashboard, via Official Google Blog

What do you do when you find yourself with an old 5,000 volt power supply? Hell, you might as well build a can crusher out of it, right? That's just what Bob Davis did.

Bob stripped the unit down to the supply itself, a huge 100 microfarad capacitor and a (broken) meter. After hooking the thing up to a pumpkin (no effect) and an apple (blown to pieces) he turned his sites on an innocent soda can.

Bob Davis via GadgetLab

You've probably heard of the concept of a space elevator, climbing a 22,000 mile long cable that's attached to a satellite in geostationary orbit over the Earth's equator. Sounds crazy, but the concept is edging ever closer toward reality.

NASA is offering a first prize of $1.1 million to anyone who can create a space elevator that climbs a kilometer at an average rate of 5 meters per second. No one's done that yet, but the second-place prize of $900,000 was just won by a company called LaserMotive, whose climber shimmied up a kilometer-long cable at 2 meters per second. It's powered by a stationary laser on the ground, pointing up to a target on the craft, providing enough power for it to lift.

There's still a long way to go, though. LaserMotive and two other teams — the Kansas City Space Pirates and the University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team — are all making progress toward winning first prize. Eventually, though, somebody has to figure out how to make a cable light enough and strong enough to span that 22,000 mile distance. Insert miracle here.

Via Wired

If you liked the idea of the Sound Egg but not so much its aesthetics, say hello the Martin Emila's Media Chair. It's the same idea: a comfy chair set up with speakers focused right at your head, but one that looks a lot classier. You know, without all that sound-dampening foam stapled in there.

With the Media Chair, you get to pick the color of the chair itself as well as the color and pattern of the fabric of the seat. At least, in theory, as this is just a concept. Which I guess, in the end, gives the Sound Egg a leg up. Being real and all.

Renamed via BornRich

In The Box, when Cameron Diaz and James Marsden receive the eponymous object it's accompanied by a weird-looking dude who explains exactly what it is and how to use it. That's some service, but it could get cost-prohibitive for the manufacturer if it sent a personal assistant for every item sold.

That got us thinking: What the Box needs is a QuickStart Guide. If any sinister manufacturer wants to start making this gadget, feel free to use this insert. Just leave our names out of it.

Korea's Cowon opted not to worry about cutting-edge features and focus more on innovative design with the release of the iAudio E2 MP3 player. Sporting a similar form factor to that of the popular Apple iPod nano, the iAudio E2 is topped off by a striking steel ring that gives it a somewhat retro-futuristic look.

The device comes in white, black, sky blue, lilac silver, orange red, mocha brown, pink and violet, offers support for MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC and WAV audio formats, and has an "earSafe" function that automatically turns down the volume when a user first turns the device on. Offered in 2 gigabyte and 4 gigabyte versions, the unit will go on sale for 49,000 Korean won ($42) here.

Via Aving

There's been a lot of talk about 3D being the next big thing in TV. Next year most manufacturers are going to debut some kind of 3D set (if they haven't already), and Hollywood is already producing plenty of 3D content, with more on the way. I've seen the demos of 3D video, and most of them are impressive. Some writers are convinced 3D is going to invade our living rooms, like it or not.

They're wrong. 3D is a bold and interesting experiment, but it's not going to get traction because it's not what people want. Sure it's cool and flashy, but those glasses? Deal breaker. While others duke it out over the irrelevant title of becoming the standard in 3D, one manufacturer is leading the charge to where TVs really need to go. That would be Toshiba and its Cell Regza HDTV. The destination: real convergence.

Read on to see why I think the Cell Regza is the future of TV.

Here's one for the books. CERN's Large Hadron Collider has once again been shut down. No catastrophic helium leak or failing magnets this time. The culprit? A speck of bread, which officials believe was originally part of a larger baguette. To make it all the more ridiculous, it's thought that the piece of bread was dropped into the works by a bird.

The morsel found its way into the doomsday device's outdoor machinery, sparking a temperature differential that triggered an automatic shutdown sequence. I know, I know — I'm sure that ruins all the images you had of a bird navigating the LHC's 17-mile-ring like a Death Star trench run, but there it is.

The Large Hadron Collider should still get collidin' in November as planned, though it will be offline for the next few days as CERN restarts it. Unless the crumb from a worker's lunch causes the LHC to explode and destroy half the planet, that is.

The Register, via Popular Mechanics, via io9

Ford's on a roll. First it announces a $1 billion profit for its most recent quarter, and now it announces inflatable seat belts. Installed next year in the back seats of its rollover-prone Explorer SUVs, the inflatable belt will operate just like any other seatbelt until a collision occurs. That's when sensors trigger the seatbelt's internal tubular airbags, inflating in 40 milliseconds, or the amount of time it takes a speeding SUV to travel about a yard.

Ford emphasized that the new belts are not seatbelt-deployed airbags, but said the inflated padding will still significantly reduce head and neck injuries, especially for small children, who are often the occupants of the rear seat.

If you've ever been restrained by a seatbelt in an accident, you know how sore your rib cage is the next day. Ford says that not only will this inflatable seatbelt "distribute crash force energy across five times more of the occupant's torso than a traditional belt," but even when deflated, its additional padding makes it more comfortable, perhaps encouraging more riders to buckle them in the first place.

Via Jalopnik

The Briz is a concept air conditioner that takes the familiar form of blinds. But instead of just blocking the sun out, when these blinds are open the keep the air inside cool.

It uses water-filled tubes running beneath the the bottom part of the blinds to emit a dry mist into the airflow. As the water evaporates, it absorbs heat and cools down the surrounding area. I'd like to see your venetian blinds do that.

Via Yanko Design

How cheap can media players get? This ViewSonic VMP70 plays 1080p video files in a variety of formats for under a hundred bucks. There are HDMI and component outputs in the back, ready to play DivX, XviD, H.264, VC-12, WMV and MPEG1/2/4 files for a relatively small sum. Hey, there's even a digital audio input.

The downside? First of all there's no mention of Matroska video file (.mkv) compatibility, which is quickly becoming the standard of HD video file distribution on the Internet. And there's no network connectivity, so you'd have to use a USB drive to bring in your various video, audio, and pictorial selections.

The list price is $130, but we're hearing rumblings of holiday pricing of $98.99, so look carefully and you might find yourself a low-end video player with similar specs to the Western Digital WD TV Live (find it for a mere $119 here) with better looks at a price that's about $20 lower. But then, the WD TV Live plays Matroska files, so keep that in mind.

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