Lego just announced their
Mindstorm NXT which is (gulp) "smarter, stronger, and more intuitive than ever." The new toolset
features a wide range of sensors allowing your bot to now sense and react to sounds and movement with improved reaction
to both light and touch. The heart of the system is the NXT brick -- a 32-bit microprocessor which can be programmed by
PC or now, Mac. The brick is USB 2.0 or Bluetooth enabled allowing for wireless instruction download -- sweet. Once
programmed, the robot "then takes on a life of its own, fully autonomous from the computer." Hmm that reminds
us, it's probably no coincidence that Lego made their NXT mascot above resemble Johnny 5 who, you will recall developed
consciouness just long enough to feel the fear of being cast opposite Ally Sheedy. So think twice about programming in
self-awareness, mkay?
[Thanks,
tempusmaster]