This article is more than 1 year old

Iraq grunts mourn loss of robot comrade

'Scooby Doo saved my life', sobs heartbroken US soldier

Those of us chronicling the inexorable Rise of the Machines™ know only too well the dangers of forming emotional bonds with technology - albeit a mere fondness for your Dyson, or a slight affection for your new Renault Laguna.

The reason, as members of the neoLuddite Resistance Army among you are already aware, is that as soon as you have formed a comfortable, trusting relationship with your machine than it will kick you down the stairs in an display of vacuuminous rage or subject you to a 125mph, white-knuckle kamikaze terror ordeal.

The iRobot PackBot EODIt is, then, with dismay that we offer a Reuters report on the growing tendency for front-line US troops in Iraq to get friendly with their iRobot PackBot EOD (seen right) - a bomb-disposal droid version of IRobot Inc's remote-controlled bot, of which around 300 are currently deployed in that sun-kissed paradise astride the Tigris.

One EOD, nicknamed "Scooby Doo" by his comrades, had already selflessly completed 35 bomb disposal missions when he was dispatched to that great breaker's yard in the sky. According to IRobot Inc supremo Colin Angle, one distraught grunt pleaded with repair technicians: "Please fix Scooby Doo because he saved my life."

Angle explained: "I think it's very rational. [Scooby Doo] was someone, something, that was doing a great service for them and thus when they brought it back, it was viewed not just as a loss of a machine gun or a piece of body armor or a helmet. It was a loss of a contributing member of the team."

Of course, while our fear that once the growing army of EODs has completely gained the confidence of the US military it will turn upon its human masters - advancing relentlessly across the Iraqi hinterland to a battle cry of "Scooby-dooby-do!" - is tempered by the fact that its intended victims are suitably armed to repel a robotic uprising, we are rather more concerned with the possible to threat to humanity posed by IRobot Inc's Roomba and Scooba domestic cybercleaners.

After all, your average housewife does not have a M109A6 Paladin Self Propelled Howitzer readily to hand in the event of homicidal Roomba assault, and most grandmothers will not - when her Scooba receives the "kill" activation signal from the Lizard Alliance mothership - be able to bring down a hellish concentration of Apache helicopter gunship ordnance on the satanic floor-scrubber.

For the record, IRobot Inc has sold more than two million Roombas. It's currently contracted to supply a further 213 bomb-disposal packbots to the US Navy. Consider yourselves warned. ®

The Rise of the Machines™

Bendy bus attacks Leeds cake shop
Captain Cyborg acquires Dalek capability
Man survives satanic BMW crash-and-burn
Second Freeview box signals alien invasion fleet
Lizard Army fuses woman with black helicopter
NRA probes Japanese sex android
Androids launch minicab firm
Beware the breast-examining hand of death
Lizard Army Neo-Mech menaces eBay
Vampire robonurses hunt in packs
Captain Cyborg gives forth on CNN
Cornell Uni develops apocalypse cube
Sex android begats Armageddon machine
Man executes Chrysler
Rise of the man-eating cyberloo
Sobbing Frenchman recounts Renault Laguna terror ordeal
Fire-breathing bus attacks South London
Dyson unleashes self-replicating hoover
Battling teen crushes roboarm menace
French join motorised Lizard Alliance
Lizard Army develops copulating robot
We are Zogg: The Cuddly Menace
Lizard Army invades Alaska
London menaced by flaming DVD players
Killer hoover attacks Scotsman
Car self-destructs in assassination bid
The rise of the rat-brain controlled android
Japanese unveil trumpet-playing robot
Boffins unleash robotic cockroach
Ukrainian teen fights the Rise of the Machines
Man in satanic Renault terror ordeal
Killer cyberappliances: Satan implicated
US develops motorised robobollard
Killer cyberloo kidnaps kiddie
A robot in every home by 2010
Cyberappliances attack Italian village
Fire-breathing buses threaten London
Cyberloo blast rocks Stoke-on-Trent
Spanish cyberkiosks claim second victim
Cyberkiosk assaults Spanish teenager
Hi-tech toilet caught on camera
Hi-tech toilet swallows woman

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like