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Still Dreaming Of Tentacle Arms
German firm Festo put out this cool visualization of a robotic tentacle arm; it would be actuated by air pressure rather than the usual servomechanisms.
(Robotic 'Handling Assistant')
H.G. Wells was the first one to paint this picture in fiction (as far as I know); readers recall the steel tentacles from his 1898 novel War of the Worlds:
Seen nearer, the Thing was incredibly strange, for it was no mere insensate machine driving on its way. Machine it was, with a ringing metallic pace, and long, flexible, glittering tentacles (one of which gripped a young pine tree) swinging and rattling about its strange body.
Via Botjunkie.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 4/14/2010)
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Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")
Hotels Turn To Robots As Human Workers Regroup
'Chain of hotels that specialized in non-human service.' - Harry Harrison, 1970.
Physiotherapists Get Help From Robots
'Most of the Members went into cold-rest; the others tended them...' - Robert Heinlein, 1941.
Tentacle Robot Gripper Recalls War Of The Worlds
'It presented a sort of metallic spider with five jointed, agile legs, and with an extraordinary number of jointed levers, bars, and reaching and clutching tentacles.' - HG Wells, 1898.
Four-Legged Robot With Magnetized Feet Climbs Walls
'... his magnetic boots which served to hold him to the steel floor.' - Raymond Z. Gallun, 1931.
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